


You Watched Me Sink

by bananasandboots



Series: You Watched Me Sink Verse [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Semi-established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:56:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6896620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananasandboots/pseuds/bananasandboots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They've discussed it a few times - the boyfriend thing. It's not like it's some forbidden, horrific, </i>abandon hope all ye who talk about furthering the relationship<i> sort of subject. They're mature adults. They're in tune with their feelings, their hearts' desires, the way those butterflies swoop in their bellies whenever they so much as hold each other's hands. They like each other. A lot. It's mutual, they know. But for now, they're just content to enjoy the simplicity of what they have, and what they have is great.</i></p>
<p>
  <i>When dating in secret stops being enough, then they'll discuss that too.</i>
</p>
<p>Or, the one where Harry teaches Sex Ed and sneaks around with the drama teacher, and doesn't realize how out of tune he is with his true feelings until everyone else figures it out for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Watched Me Sink

**Author's Note:**

> I'd just like to start by saying this is the fluffiest, most plotless, self-indulgent thing I have ever written. If you read my first story, hopefully you'll understand when I say I just needed something cute and happy after spending so much time with something so emotionally draining.
> 
> Anyway, you're all super lovely for reading my nonsense. I really hope you enjoy this ridiculous bit of fluff!
> 
> Italian translation can be found [here](http://efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=3490696), thanks to the lovely [Emma](http://rareandsweetas.tumblr.com/)!

Harry has always agreed that the first day of school is the most important. It's the one day of the year that allows for a fresh start, for first impressions, for stepping forward on the right foot and getting his students excited about the days and lessons ahead. He's only had one first day on the teaching side of the spectrum and it had been both terrifying and thrilling all at once. He'd met other teachers, made new friends, traumatized four classes of teenagers with a syllabus full of sex and drug-related topics, and today he gets to do it all over again.

That is, if he ever makes it out of the bedroom.

"Louis, I can't - we don't have time, we can't -  _Ooh."_  He arches off the mattress, eyes screwed tight, fingers twisting in the sheets as Louis laps at the bit of precome dribbling over the head of his cock. They're going to be late. God, they're going to be so fucking late.

_"Louis,"_  Harry tries again, "we can't - I can't - this was a bad idea. I'm too old. I can't come in under three minutes. My body wasn't made for that.  _Louis."_

"Will you shut up?" Louis snaps as he abruptly pulls off, a line of spit running down from the corner of his mouth. Harry watches a little breathlessly as Louis' tongue flicks out to lick it up, pink and perfect and smooth.

"We need to stop," he pleads, chest heaving. He doesn't want to. He really doesn't want to, but when he set their alarm the night before, he didn't account for any sex before school and Louis had  _ambushed_  him.

"If I leave you like this now," Louis says, one hand lazily pumping his own cock while two of his other fingers tease at Harry's sensitive slit, "you're never going to get this to go down. You're going to show up to your first day of school with a massive hard-on and you won't be able to stop thinking about the orgasm you could have had. They'll sack you."

He swipes his thumb over Harry's slit, and Harry squirms, his knee jerking up to knock Louis' hand away.

"I could take a cold shower," he groans, trying to cover himself with his hands. He's not going to take a cold shower. He hates being cold and Louis knows it.

"Give me two minutes," Louis says. "You're almost there, anyway."

"I am not."

"Harry."

"I'm  _not_. Fuck." He bucks off the bed at the feeling of Louis' mouth closing around his cock again. Louis digs his nails into his hips to pin him down.  _"Fine,"_  he whines, breath hitching over the 'i.' "Please, just make it quick."

Louis pulls off just far enough to roll his eyes and suck on the head, and Harry can't  _stand_  him. He looks so fucking gorgeous and he feels  _so fucking good._  Why they ever waited so long to start hooking up is an absolute mystery to him.

Three minutes and two orgasms later, they're both scrambling out of bed and into Louis' tiny shower - Harry feeding Louis a piece of soggy, unbuttered toast while Louis washes his hair for him. They soap up, dry off, start slipping into their professional clothes, all while trying to visualize for Harry how many buttons he should be able to leave open on his shirt without his nipples putting on a show.

"Three," Louis decides once they've fully dressed, in between gulping down too-hot cups of tea and coffee in his bedroom.

Harry tucks his floral-patterned button-up into his trousers and does up his flies. He still feels flushed from his head down to his dick, brain sucked out through the end of it and his body feeling all sorts of sex-sluggish and jittery for school. He hopes none of his students notice. He hopes none of his coworkers notice. He hopes he makes it through the day without having to drag Louis into the teacher's supply room for a quickie.

"You're sure you don't want to ride with me?" he asks as he adjusts the straps on his rucksack and grabs his helmet off the table by the door. He already knows what the answer will be because he knows Louis has an aversion to motorcycles as well as an aversion to them arriving at school together. No one is supposed to know they've spent the entire summer fucking each other into oblivion and going on secret fro-yo dates. It's not like the school has a policy against co-workers dating, but the two of them aren't quite ready to take that step yet.

"I'm pretty fucking positive," Louis nods before pushing Harry out the door. They're going to be late. "Got everything?"

Harry hums a yes and goes to slip his helmet on, but Louis stops him.

"Wait," he says, taking the heavy hunk of plastic from Harry's hands. "Kiss?"

It's all rather domestic, Harry realizes before gently curling his fingers around Louis' jaw and titling his chin up for a sweet and easy kiss. If it weren't for Louis' elderly neighbor watering her flowers across the street, he'd slip in some tongue and maybe grope Louis' arse one last time, but as it is, he doesn't want to disturb any grannies and they're going to be fucking  _late_.

"I'll see you for lunch?" Louis asks as he hands the helmet back over.

Harry sets it neatly over his long curls and gives it a good shove onto his head. "Under the bleachers for a cheeky snog?"

"What are you, fourteen?"

"Yeah, just about." Harry grins and slips his sunglasses up his nose.

Louis just gives him literal kick in the arse and sets Harry in motion down the front steps toward his bike.

\---

When Harry first got his degree in Health and Exercise Science, he honestly never imagined he'd spend the next two years out of uni teaching rowdy teenagers about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but his life likes to throw surprises his way. He'd been thinking more along the lines of nutritionist or physical therapist, anything less awkward than rolling a condom over a banana in front of a bunch of teenagers, but the PSHE position opened up at the nearby school and that's where he ended up.

It's not all bad, really. He tries to make his lessons as fun as possible, tries not to scar the kids for life, tries to be engaging and informative and not leave them fumbling to understand proper birth control when they fly off and enter the real world. Mostly, he just wants to be a good influence. He wants to keep the kids' heads on their shoulders, wants to be anything other than that decrepit old woman who tried to teach him at the horny age of sixteen that  _abstinence, abstinence, abstinence_  was the best way to avoid an STI. It's not like she was wrong. He just thinks there are better,  _more inclusive_  ways of teaching these things.

"Anyway," he says towards the end of his first lecture, clapping his hands together and making several drowsy students jump. "Safe sex is important, drugs are bad, and Fleetwood Mac is the greatest band of all time," he summarizes.

A scrawny boy near the back of the room raises his hand.

"Mr. Styles, if Fleetwood Mac is so great, why did I see you wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt at Waitrose over the summer?"

A few students let out mock-scandalized  _oooing_  noises and Harry can't help the laugh that bubbles out of his chest, warm and delighted to be having this conversation.

"Well," he says carefully, sitting on the edge of his desk and checking the clock above the door. He's got two minutes left until the period ends. "You might not have realized this," he deadpans, "but sometimes a person can love more than one band. I know it might be a little difficult to grasp, but I'm sure you'll understand. It's like polyamory. Look it up."

"Like a threesome?" one of the louder boys quips, causing a stir of giggles.

Harry refrains from letting out a heavy sigh, and concedes with a nod. "Yes, I suppose it's like a threesome," he allows patiently. "Like a musical threesome if that's what you want to call it."

"Are we going to learn about threesomes this year?" a girl dares to ask.

Harry pulls an extra syllabus off his desk and pretends to skim through it while biting the skin around one of his knuckles. He loves that his students are comfortable enough to talk about random sex things in his class. It was a bit odd at first, having to be so open about everything in front of a bunch of curious tenth years, but nothing fazes him now. He just has to keep it appropriate and impersonal, avoid complaints from parents, avoid losing his job.

"Sorry, there isn't anything about threesomes in the curriculum," he finally answers to a couple of sniggers as he sets the syllabus next to his third cup of coffee and hops off his desk. "That's what porn is for," he adds, and then pauses when he realizes they're all under the legal age. "Actually, forget I said that. Porn is illegal. None of you are allowed to go searching for it."

Before anyone can even respond, twenty pairs of eyes staring blankly at him, the bell cuts their introduction period to an end and Harry's off the hook.

"Alright," he says, watching everyone hurry to pack their bags, "your only homework assignment is to Google Fleetwood Mac or The Rolling Stones, and have a listen to one of their songs. That's literally all I ask of you, and you don't want to disappoint me."

He's met with a chorus of  _"yes, Mr. Styles,"_ and considers his first lesson a success.

\---

"Oh my god, Niall, is that Mr. Styles?"

"Oh my god, Liam, why is he so  _fit?"_

Harry shoots them both dirty looks before dropping into the empty seat next to Louis and stealing one of his chips.

"Why am I the only one who ever gets called out for this?" he grumbles, hooking his ankle around Louis' beneath the lunch table and dragging his leg toward him. "You're all plenty fit. Why's no one mooning over you three?"

"Liam's got a girlfriend and I'm too intimidating," Louis tries to explain, wiping his greasy fingers on his trousers. "Niall doesn't mention sex as much as you, so he can't hold anyone's attention."

Harry crinkles his nose, a little confused and a lot disgusted. "Niall teaches physics," he points out. "He shouldn't be mentioning sex at all."

Louis shrugs. "It's all that talk about space," he says. "Gravity does something to him. Turns him on."

Harry doesn't even know how to respond to that. Talking about penises all day doesn't even get his pulse rising. Nothing about his subject would ever provoke such an intense pleasure that he'd relate it to a night in bed. But he knows it's true - Louis isn't lying. He'd walked past Niall's classroom once and heard him playing  _Screw, Marry, Kill_  with various physicists as his options.

_"You_  turn me on," he says instead, because he's smooth like that, and because he loves the way it sets Niall off. It's Harry's favorite game: alluding to the sex life he and Louis most certainly have while making Niall think he's completely joking.

"Would you two please just hook up already?" Niall nearly begs, right on cue. He's been trying to get them together since Harry first joined their little lunch group last year, and somehow, Harry and Louis have managed to keep the truth from him and Liam for about four months now. God, if they only knew.

Louis raises his eyebrows and checks around them, pretending to care about eavesdropping coworkers nearby.

"We're just friends, Niall," Harry reminds everyone with an amused laugh. He tries not to react when Louis' hand finds his upper thigh and gives a good squeeze, but it doesn't really matter. They could literally start shagging each other in front of Niall, and Niall would think they were doing it just to mess with his head.

To prove his point, Louis leans over and plants a firm kiss right over his cheekbone, spreading a lovely, little flush across Harry's face and down his neck.

"Yeah, just friends," Louis nods and lets his hand slide further up Harry's thigh, taunting, testing the waters.

"Idiots, both of you," Niall mutters. He turns his attention back to his chicken sandwich and leaves them alone in their fake, not-so-fake bubble of feelings and heart eyes and  _swooning_  while he and Liam discuss boring science department things for the next half hour. Apparently there's a shortage of sodium hydroxide this year. Bollocks.

"How's your first day going?" Harry asks Louis once he's dug his homemade salad from his lunch bag and drizzled some dressing over it. Louis eyes it with suspicion but keeps his judgmental comments to himself.

"Alright," he answers, swallowing around mouthful of chips. "Nothing too exciting's happened yet, not like last year when that kid nearly threw up on my desk. I reckon the year twelves toned down the end of summer partying for once. Nice work, Mr. Styles."

He pinches Harry's cheek with his greasy, salt-covered fingers and Harry can't help the proud, little smile that finds its way onto his face.

"Just show them a couple photos of diseased livers and they never drink again," he says, even if it's not true. He knows it's not because too many of his ex-students have tried to add him on Instagram after graduating, and while he doesn't necessarily mean to go through their photos while declining their follow requests, it's rather difficult to avoid all the drunk pictures, the party shots. Clearly someone should be teaching them a little more about discretion if they aren't going to listen to his lectures on binge-drinking.

"Any exciting faculty gossip?" he asks, curious.

It's Liam, surprisingly, who leans across the table to whisper first. "Apparently Valerie from the history department has been getting on with Coach McDonald for a month," he says. "No one's supposed to know but I saw her come out of the boy's locker room this morning and she made me swear not to tell anyone."

"Right, so you've decided to tell us." Louis furrows his eyebrows, dangling his fork over his plate like he's not sure which piece of his fruit salad to stab next. Harry's just glad he's eating any of it at all, after the fuss he made last night when he saw the pineapple in his kitchen, cubed and ready to go.

"How do you expect me to keep a secret like that?" Liam asks defensively. "A  _whole month_ she admitted to, and I didn't even know they were friends. Did any of you?"

"Never would have guessed it," Niall chimes in.

"Me neither," Harry agrees. "Although a month is nothing. Louis and I have been secretly dating since after the Spring Musical and none of you have noticed yet."

He steals a chunk of watermelon off Louis' plate and pops it in his mouth like it's no big deal. They won't believe him anyway, even as Louis raises his fist and bumps his knuckles in return, smirking to himself and making Harry want to kiss him forever.

"I'm not going to fall for that, you fucking liar _,"_  Niall mutters, shaking his head and sighing heavily.

"Language, Neil," Louis chides before selecting a bit of strawberry and peeling it from his fork. It's a miracle Niall's not perceptive, or else the fruit salad thing would surely have given them away by now. There's no way Louis would ever eat any of it if he didn't have Harry murmuring after every blow job about how his come would taste better if he just swapped some fruit for his junk food. Honestly, Harry would have made a fantastic nutritionist.

"You know, Niall, one day you're going to walk in on them having a snog in the supply closet, and you're going to regret ever wishing they'd gotten together," Liam sighs, shaking his head.

"Wouldn't that be  _dreadful..."_  Harry deadpans, glancing over at Louis.

"The worst," Louis nods in agreement. He lets his fingers dip momentarily into the crease of Harry's thigh, pulling back only when Harry can't take it any longer and starts trying to shake him off. "We should probably save them from their misery and take this elsewhere," Louis proposes.

After an entire summer of being able to have Louis wherever and whenever he liked, nothing sounds better than sneaking off to his classroom and stealing another moment with him.

"Yeah, alright." Harry nods and grabs both their lunches. "Let's go touch each other or whatever," he says, before leading Louis out the door to the sound of Niall's indignant grumbling.

\---

They don't actually end up touching each other, not unless bumping elbows and sitting so close their hips almost undergo nuclear fusion counts as touching each other, which... okay, yeah, it does, but not in any way scandalous or inappropriate. They're better than that. Maybe.

"Oh, wait, go back. I like that one," Louis stops Harry, grabbing his phone from between his fingers and tapping the back arrow until he gets to the song he wants.

Harry glances at his screen as the opening beat kicks in. "You hate this song."

"Do not."

"Yeah, you do," he argues, wriggling his arm back between them and draping it casually around Louis' waist. "I tried playing it for you two weeks ago and you wouldn't shut up about how awful it was. You said it made your ears bleed. You threatened to cut holes in the crotches of all my trousers if I didn't turn it off."

"Well, I like it now." Louis shrugs and drops the phone right on top of Harry's dick.

Harry grunts, this terrible noise that slips right out of his mouth, more embarrassing than the twinge of something in his chest over the fact that Louis doesn't hate one of his favorite songs after all.

"What made you change your mind?" he asks, screwing his face up in pain. Honestly, what did he do to deserve that?

"I dunno." Louis ignores him. "I guess it reminds me of you. We had fun that night."

"Did we?" Harry raises his eyebrows. He seems to remember spending most of the night at the nearest launderette, waiting two hours for Louis' clothes to wash and dry because he forgot to call the repair man to fix his broken machine. It wasn't anything extraordinary, not like their all-night, naked scrabble tournament or the afternoon they spent trying to pedal a tandem bicycle down by the river, but Harry supposes it was alright.

"You were all clingy and dumb from the sex we had that day, and I don't know," Louis says again. "It was just a good night. Don't make me explain myself."

Harry blinks at him. "I was clingy and  _dumb?"_  he repeats, frowning. "That's your definition of a good night?"

"I said I didn't know," Louis sighs and elbows Harry in the ribs in an attempt to hide the adorable, flustered smile threatening to take over his face. "It was  _fun_. We shared jelly babies. I plaited your hair. You put up with me slagging off your favorite song because you know I can be a monster and because you're a very good-" he cuts himself off and closes his mouth before he can say anything silly like the b-word. Instead, he tips his head onto Harry's shoulder and exhales heavily.

"A very good person," Harry finishes for him, patting Louis' hair.

"Alien, more like." Louis snorts but doesn't say anything else from where he's pressed against Harry's side, and Harry's okay with that.

They've discussed it a few times - the boyfriend thing. It's not like it's some forbidden, horrific,  _abandon hope all ye who talk about furthering the relationship_  sort of subject. They're mature adults. They're in tune with their feelings, their hearts' desires, the way those butterflies swoop in their bellies whenever they so much as hold each other's hands. They like each other. A lot. It's mutual, they know. But for now, they're just content to enjoy the simplicity of what they have, and what they have is great.

When dating in secret stops being enough, then they'll discuss that too.

"Do you really like this song now?" Harry asks quietly, just to be sure. "I don't want you saying you do just because you feel like a prick for taking the piss out of it. I want you to genuinely like it."

"I genuinely do," Louis promises, head-butting Harry shoulder before straightening up and putting a crack of space between them. It's all for the best, anyway. They only have a few minutes left of their lunch period - who knows when the next students might start straggling in to find them huddled together. "I bought the entire album, actually," Louis admits then. "A couple nights ago when you were too busy to come over. It's good. Not as hipster-y as I thought it would be, but then again, neither are you."

"I'm a fraud," Harry laughs and hangs his head in shame.

"You DVR American football, H. Not even a kale smoothie could make up for that." Louis squeezes his thigh as the song comes to a quiet end. "I should probably get going," he comments, checking the time on Harry's phone. "Why does my classroom have to be at the complete opposite end of the building this year? What could I have possibly done to deserve that?"

"They're just trying to keep you from me," Harry sighs even though they both know what the real reason is. After last year's fiasco with the English department, the administration thought it would be best to relocate the drama classroom away from Harry's side of the building and closer to the music department. It's not Louis' fault if drama is supposed to be expressive and emotional, loud and slightly disruptive. The English teachers should have embraced his enthusiastic unit on Shakespeare rather than moan about all the  _noise_  and the  _banging_  and the - god, it's only been half a school day and Harry already misses having Louis in the room next door.

"Are you coming over tonight?" Harry asks, hopping off the ledge by the windows and straightening out his shirt. "We could have another laundry date if you'd like," he teases. "I'll even pay for you this time."

"All two pounds of it?" Louis asks, eyebrows raised.

"Four if you separate the lights and darks like I keep telling you to."

"I'm trying to conserve water, Harold," Louis insists. "Aren't you supposed to be the environmentalist here?"

"Nutritionist," Harry corrects and offers Louis a hand off the ledge. They stumble back half a step, Harry's heel bumping the leg of a nearby desk, and Louis' free hand finding stability at his hip. It would be really easy to lean in a brush a kiss over Louis' mouth from this position, but Harry has learned the hard way over the past few months that he can't just take bits and pieces of Louis whenever he wants. The door's wide open and anyone could walk in.

That doesn't stop him from tilting his mouth towards Louis' ear and murmuring, "besides, I already shower with a buddy," before stepping away.

As Louis pretends the thought of being pressed up against Harry from behind, naked, wet, and panting into his hot skin doesn't affect him at all, Harry starts setting up for his next class.

\---

"One of my students asked if yellow Skittles could be used as birth control," Harry tells Louis after dinner that night, slouched down on his couch, Louis' head on his stomach.

He spills a few of the fruity candies into his hand and drops one of them into Louis' awaiting mouth.

"How-" Louis chews, "-does that make any sense? Explain to me where the logic is."

He opens his mouth again and Harry purposely places a yellow one on his tongue.

"Apparently, in like the early nineties, there was a rumor that the yellow dye could decrease your sperm count if you ingested it," he explains, watching Louis' head rise and fall with each breath. "I had to Google it after class, but it's true."

"The rumor?" Louis asks and starts reaching into his mouth to pull out his half-chewed wad of Skittles.

Harry doesn't even bat an eyelash, just takes Louis' wrist and stops him from being disgusting. "No, the fact that there was a rumor at all," he clarifies and shakes his head. "I can't believe how disgusting you are."

"That's rich, coming from you," Louis huffs and rolls his eyes, wiping his slobbery fingers on Harry's shirt. Harry tries to grab his hand again but Louis swats him away. "Remind me where you found the rug you've currently got your smelly feet on," Louis dares, crossing his arms over his chest.

Harry purposely picks out all the yellow Skittles to feed him next. "On the street," he answers grudgingly because he knows where this is going. He'll never hear the end of it after that nightmare of an afternoon.

"And what crawled out when we unrolled it?" Louis asks, turning to face him.

"It didn't  _crawl_  out," Harry sighs, avoiding his gaze.

Louis raises an eyebrow. "Harry."

"Louis."

_"Harry."_

"It wasn't my fault," Harry groans, pouring his handful of Skittles back into the bag before they melt in his sweaty palm. "I saw the rug on the side of the road and thought it would look nice in here. How was I supposed to know it had about a thousand spiders and a dead mouse living in it?"

" _A dead mouse,"_  Louis scoffs and abruptly sits up. "This rug-" he swings his bare foot off the side of the couch and smacks it on the ground, "had a fucking  _dead mouse_  in it and you're worried about me putting my fingers in my mouth?"

Harry doesn't say anything.

"You do realize you've had your tongue up my arse, right?" Louis asks with a smirk that Harry wishes he could kiss off his stupid, obnoxious face.

"That's different," he argues, cheeks flaming up.

"You brought a dead mouse into your flat on a rug someone was probably murdered on, and  _I'm_  the disgusting one." Louis barks out a laugh, getting up on his knees atop the couch and towering over Harry. He shakes his head and jabs a finger at Harry's shoulder. "No, sir.  _You_  are the grossest of them all. They should lock you up for that one, put you in Gross Jail. You and Niall and the person who invented onions."

Harry stares at him in disbelief. "You're ridiculous," he says. "And onions are good for you."

He reaches for Louis' hand to tug him into his lap, but Louis squirms away.

"Stop it, or I'll call the Gross Police," he warns, schooling his expression into something vaguely serious but mostly teasing. He's such a little shit and Harry is so, so fond of him.

"There's no such thing as Gross Jail," Harry argues as he snags an arm around Louis' waist and draws him in.

Despite the protests that come tumbling out of Louis' loud mouth, he lands with one knee on either side of Harry's hips, straddling his thighs with both hands planted on his chest. Before Harry can even think about getting frisky with him, though, Louis pushes himself up, kneeling over him and bracing his forearms on his shoulders instead.

"You bet your peachy arse there is," he mutters and tugs at the ends of Harry's hair. "You known who the first person they locked up there was?"

Harry hums in amusement and takes Louis' waist in both hands. "No, but I expect you'll tell me."

"That woman who tried to put sugar in my tea at brunch last week," Louis answers and pulls a face.

"She  _misheard_  you," Harry defends the poor woman, and slips his thumbs under the hem of Louis' t-shirt, teasing over his hip bones. His skin is soft and smooth there, and if Harry gets his way, he'll have his mouth on it in less than three minutes. "Who else is going to keep me company in jail?" he murmurs, pulling Louis closer.

Louis smirks from where he's watching above, arching toward Harry until Harry's chin bumps high on his stomach and his lips kiss his chest through his shirt.

"The entire Liverpool football club," Louis states, and that just about does it.

"I can't believe you'd put me on the same level as Liverpool all because of a dead mouse," Harry pouts and drops his forehead to Louis' sternum, only lifting it once Louis starts pulling at his hair again. "It wasn't even decomposing yet," he argues. "Am I really that bad?"

"The worst," Louis nods, staring down at him and fighting so hard to keep from smiling that it looks like it hurts. "I guess you'll just have to make it up to me," he suggests, shuffling closer, fingers still combing through the hairs at the back of Harry's head.

Harry nuzzles his face into Louis' shirt and runs his hands up underneath it. "Did you have anything particular in mind?" he murmurs.

"I've got a good idea, yeah." Louis shrugs as Harry rucks his shirt up to his armpits and starts trailing slow, wet kisses from his abdomen to his chest. He feels Louis' stomach flutter at the touch, feels his muscles twitch under his lips. He kisses back down, sinking lower into the couch, stopping just above Louis' waistband to undo the button on his jeans.

Louis' fingers close around his wrist.

Harry hesitates, bitting his lip. "Um," he starts, peering up and meeting Louis' heavy gaze, fingers stuck on the button. "Are we not...?"

"No, we are," Louis reassures him, playing absent-mindedly with the hair-band around Harry's wrist. Or, at least Harry thinks he's doing it absent-mindedly, until Louis pulls at it, gives it a twist, and stretches it over his other wrist, effectively tying his hands together.

Harry blinks up at him, his cock twitching in his jeans, his breath caught in his throat.

"Lou?"

"Harry Styles," Louis answers in what sounds like a terrible, faux-authoritative, American accent, "you are under arrest for being the worst."

He takes Harry's bound hands, lifts them up and over his curly head, and starts shedding his jeans.

\---

"I figured out what I'm doing for the Fall Drama," is the first thing Louis announces when he strolls into Harry's classroom on Friday afternoon.

Harry, who had just been sorting through anonymous sex-related questions from his students, puts down a slip of paper that reads, 'Can a plastic bag be used as a condom?' and uncrosses his legs from atop the desk he'd been sitting on.

"What did you decide?" he asks, beckoning Louis toward the back of the classroom and spreading his legs just enough for Louis to slot in between them. It's the end of the week and everyone's gone home already. A few gentle touches and a bit of kissing won't hurt anybody.

"I'm doing a murder mystery," Louis declares and pecks Harry's lips to say hello.

Harry smiles softly, kisses him back. "Sounds morbid," he murmurs against the corner of Louis' mouth.

"It's more of a comedy, actually," Louis explains, pushing Harry back by repeatedly smoothing the hair off his forehead. "Think more along the lines of that old movie, Clue."

"The one based on the board game?"

"Yeah." Louis nods, his hands falling to Harry's thighs. "There's six different endings," he says. "During intermission, the audience can cast votes for who they want to be the murderer, and then we'll play out that ending afterwards. It'll be more work than usual, but I think we can handle it. My kids are smarter this year."

"Lucky for you," Harry laughs. "I think mine got dumber. We have this thing where they can anonymously ask whatever questions they have about sex - you know, so they won't be embarrassed to ask in front of the class. And Lou, some of them are just awful. You should hear them."

He reaches for the stack of questions he's already sorted through, and ignores the way Louis' fingers keep creeping up the inner seams of his trousers as if they're moving on their own free-will, subconsciously targeting his crotch.

"Am I going to lose faith in you as a teacher?" Louis asks, freezing as his fingers near the tops of Harry's thighs.

Harry shakes his head. "This isn't me," he says, already fighting to keep the grin off his face. "Trust me, I wouldn't teach them rubbish like this." He has a brain for god's sake.

Louis just laughs and steals the card from his lap, flips through them until he gets to the good ones, and starts reading them to himself. Harry watches as his lips twitch and quirk with the words, as a little smirk curves up the corner of his mouth, as his forehead crumples with understandable worry. When he finally gets to the one about having one testicle larger than the other three, Louis' entire face twists into this adorable combination of horrified and confused, sending spasms of fondness to Harry's heart and making him want to lean in for a quick kiss.

Louis' head snaps up before he can, catching Harry staring at him with his tongue peeking out on its way to wetting his lips. "Other  _three_?" he repeats in astonishment, clearly ignoring the hazy look in Harry's eyes. "Should he go see a doctor? Who teaches biology in this school?"

Harry tightens his thighs around Louis' hips and draws him closer, arms snaking around his waist. "I know, it's  _nuts,"_  he says, to which Louis tries very hard not to indulge him with a laugh, but, in the end, fails.

"God, you're the least funny person I know," he says, even though he's grinning and Harry can hear little breathy giggles snorting from his nose.

Harry wraps him up in his arms and bites at his shoulder. "I'm  _hilarious,"_  he insists.

"Please tell me you'll teach these kids," Louis begs, kissing the side of Harry's head and making Harry's mouth ache with how much he wants to kiss him back. "Please promise me that."

"I can only try," he giggles and shuffles off the desk so he can stand in front of Louis and press their lips together for real. "You can help me write the answers this weekend," he says softly, "though I'm not sure about that last one. Might have to Google it."

"You're going to have a very dirty search history," Louis notes, swaying a bit in Harry's hold, grasping his forearms. "Bet you've already Googled  _average penis size_  just to make sure."

"Hey," Harry whines just as Louis makes a cheeky grope at his crotch. "I'll have you know I'm above average in that aspect," he says.

"Keep telling yourself that, love." Louis smirks and tweaks one of Harry's nipples before sauntering to the front of the room, his hips swaying deliberately behind him.

He's so infuriating sometimes.

"What should we do tonight?" Louis asks, feigning innocence as he stops at the chalkboard and draws a big, curly question mark in the center. "It's my turn to wine and dine you. I was thinking sushi." He scribbles 'sushi' in the top left corner.

"We had sushi two weeks ago," Harry reminds him, making his way down the rows of desks. "What about that cafe across from the library." He picks up a broken piece of chalk and adds 'cafe' to the other side.

"I want a meal, not a sandwich," Louis scoffs and draws a harsh X through it. "What if we go someplace nice," he proposes. "Make a real date out of it with fancy dress and lots of wine, split an extra chocolatey dessert that neither of us can actually afford?"

"You're not going soft on me, are you Tomlinson?" Harry asks, lifting an eyebrow. He's not exactly complaining, he's just. He's used to the quick and easy dates, the take-away and a film on the couch dates, the trips to the zoo or the rock concerts that aren't entirely romantic. But that's them - they're easy and they like a bit of fun. Harry can do both if Louis wants. Harry can do romantic candle-lit dinners, too.

"I just thought you might enjoy a change in pace," is all Louis says, drawing a little heart on the board. "Keep you on your toes. Keep things interesting. Plus, it'll be nice getting you out of those rags and into something presentable, you know?"

He nods over his shoulder at Harry's rose-colored button-up, the one he lost half a paycheck to as well as half his dignity, and pulls a face.

"Proper slob I am," Harry sighs, allowing Louis the simple pleasure of mocking his taste in fashion. It's the least he could do, considering Louis' definitely the one paying the bill tonight.

"There's a place ten minutes from my flat if you're up for it," Louis says as he claps Harry's erasers together and a cloud of chalk dust bursts into the air.

Harry steals one from him and swipes it over the dot of the question mark. "Help me erase this and we can go."

Together, they clear the board of their dinner choices and any other notes Harry had left up from class. Harry takes the higher bits while Louis works on the bottom half, and when they're all finished and the only thing that remains is the tiny, scribbled heart in the middle, Louis deems it acceptable to go and pulls Harry from the room, their fingers intertwined.

\---

"Murder in the A.M.?" Niall reads off the stack of neon-colored flyers Louis shoves in his hands, once they've all gathered in his classroom as requested by his emergency group text. "This is the emergency? I could be on my way home by now. Explain yourself."

Slinking off of Louis' desk, Harry flips his head, shakes his hair out, ties it up in a bun to hide the fact that Louis' fingers had been raking through it not thirty seconds ago. He rebuttons the top button on his shirt.

"It's my fall drama," Louis says proudly, handing another stack to Liam. "I was between Murder in the A.M. and Midnight Murderies, but I didn't think Murderies was a word."

"It's not," Harry chimes in.

"Right, so Murder in the A.M. is what I chose," Louis says and claps his hands together. "Auditions are in two weeks, Harold already promised he'd help supervise. These flyers need to be all over the building by tomorrow morning. I want every bulletin board covered, every door, every stairwell. Liam and I will take the East Wing and the arts corridor, you two get the West and the field house."

"You're not going with Harry?" Liam asks, genuinely confused.

Harry shoots a staple at him. "We'd just end up snogging in a supply closet," he says with a smirk as he punches out three more staples.

"We should  _lock_  you in a supply closet," Niall mutters and pries the stapler from Harry's fingers before he can continue bombarding Liam.

"Thank you, Niall," Liam sighs.

In retaliation, Harry goes to tap him in the balls but Louis grabs his wrist on the outswing and twists his arm away.

"Stop harassing Liam," he warns, eyes sharp. "Jealousy is unattractive."

"I'm not jealous," Harry argues, attempting to free his arm of Louis' grip. He's not jealous. He knows they wouldn't get any actual work done if Louis went running around the school with him instead. The flyers took long enough to make over the weekend, what with the cuddling and the mutual hand jobs in between.

"Is it me or do they look like they're about to kiss?" Liam asks distantly.

Louis' grip tightens on Harry's wrist. Neither of them blink.

"They always look like they're about to kiss," Niall comments. "I swear the sexual tension between them will kill me one of these days."

"We have  _ears_ , you know? We can both hear you," Louis says and lets go of Harry's arm as he throws a glare in Niall's direction. "You aren't clever, and honestly, Niall, how can there possibly be sexual tension between us when we fuck it out of each other every night?"

"Louis," says Harry exasperatedly, rubbing his wrist.

Niall shakes his head. "You're not sleeping with him and your mouth is filthy," he says to Louis. "If you were telling the truth, trust me, I would know."

"How?" Liam asks, curious.

Louis crosses his arms and leans back against his desk. "Yeah, Niall. Tell us how."

Busying himself with organizing the stacks of flyers, Harry tries to remember why he's still friends with these people. It should be weird that his and Louis' compatibility is constantly analyzed, that Niall is seemingly obsessed with them. If Niall wanted proof that they were actually dating, it would be in the fact that they  _indulge_  him, that they aren't bothered by his insistence that they bone each other on the daily, that they repeatedly, honestly  _admit_ to the things they do, right to his face.

"You'd be all over each other every chance you had," Niall says, one hundred percent sure of himself.

"And what if we are, in our own private lives, away from you two idiots?" Louis asks.

"Then you're both arses for not telling us," Niall decides.

"But we have told you," Harry points out. "Several times. Do you want the details? Shall we describe it to you? Last night, Louis tried this thing with his tongue in my arse and I-"

"Alright, that's enough!" Liam interrupts, covering his ears. Poor, innocent Liam. "Even if it never happened, I don't want to hear it!"

"I'm not believing a word you say," Niall agrees and grabs the second stapler off Louis' desk. "Come on, you curly moron," he says to Harry, "let's get these flyers up."

Feeling brave, Harry waits until Niall and Liam start heading for the door before he sneaks the tiniest, quickest kiss to Louis' unsuspecting lips and leaves him grinning in the dust.

\---

There's scraps of sellotape stuck all over Harry's shirt by the time he and Niall reach the last un-flyered corridor. He's got a flyer stuck to his chest, one hanging off his bum, staple holes in his finger from when he stopped paying attention and stapled himself by accident. The straggling students who stayed after school for their various extra-curricurlars keep giving him odd looks. He probably deserves them.

"Niall, if I have to rip one more piece of sellotape off this roll, I think my fingertips are going to peel off my fingers," he complains as Niall tapes six flyers to his own classroom door. He's very supportive of Louis' projects.

"Almost finished," he says determinedly, stepping back to make sure they're all straight. "Last corridor and then we can go home. Did you ride your bike today?"

"Are you seriously asking if I rode my motorcycle in the rain?" Harry asks, smacking the stapler into the bulletin board outside the science department office.

"It wasn't raining this morning," Niall reminds him. "It only started an hour ago."

"Oh. Right," Harry says and shakes his head, knowing that yeah, he probably would have taken his bike then, if only he'd slept at his own flat. "Louis drove me."

If Niall has anything to say about that, he keeps the comments to himself. It does, however give him permission to broach the subject again.

"Can we talk about you and Louis?" he asks, checking behind him to make sure no students are around to eavesdrop.

Harry tries to remain indifferent when he shrugs and answers, "What about us?"

"Okay," Niall starts with a heavy breath, as if he's about to launch into a marathon speech or something equally terrifying. "So, I know I give you two shit all the time about how great I think you'd be together. And I know that's really none of my business. You're adults, you can figure your own lives out without my help. But Harry, I've seen the way you two look at each other. I know what you're like with Louis. Tell me there's nothing there. Tell me you don't have any feelings for him at all."

He grabs a piece of sellotape from Harry's fingers and sticks a flyer to the front of someone's locker.

"Does my compatibility with Louis keep you up at night, Niall?" Harry asks to avoid acknowledging the awkward weight in his chest. One day Niall's going to find out the truth, and he's going to give Harry the beating of a lifetime.

Niall's answer is serious. "I just want my mates to be happy," he says, "and together, I think you are."

"But why does that mean we have to be in a relationship?" Harry asks, playing devil's advocate. Technically, they aren't in a relationship. They're still just having fun, taking things easy. "What if the way we are now is the way we like it?"

Niall doesn't waver. "Like I said... I've see the way you look at each other. I've seen the way you look at him."

"And how's that?" Harry asks.

"Like he hung the moon, like he created the stars just for you." Niall punches the stapler against another board. "Like you want to rip off his clothes and have your way with him the first chance you get."

It's so unexpected that Harry lets out this ridiculous snort of laughter, an honest flush burning at his cheeks as he grins and shakes his head.

"I mean... he is very attractive, isn't he?" he admits, maybe for the first time in front of Niall. At least the first  _genuine_  time where the intention wasn't to provoke him.

Niall shrugs as if he's actually considering it. "If he asked, I wouldn't say no," he says and earns another laugh. He takes the last piece of sellotape from Harry's fingers and sticks a flyer to the window at the end of the corridor. When he turns back around, he meets Harry's eyes and doesn't look away. "But seriously," he says, very seriously, "I swear you look at him like you're in love with him."

Harry's heart does this funny thing in his chest. "I do?" he asks, stopping in the middle of the lockers and furrowing his brow.

"Yeah." Niall nods. "Like, just before, back in Louis' classroom. Liam and I both saw it. There was more than just sexual tension in your eyes."

"You think it was love?" Harry asks, still a bit confused. He hasn't even entertained the idea of being in love with Louis yet. He wouldn't have even thought of it - not before telling their friends about them, not before making things more official. "I don't think that's love you're seeing, Niall."

"Why not?" Niall asks.

"Because I'd know if I were in love with Louis," Harry argues. Louis would know it, too. What Niall sees is just a deep, deep fondness, just Harry being content with what they currently have. "I'm not in love with him," he says, though it sounds a little weird, almost forced, like he's reassuring himself. He shouldn't have to. He would know if he were in love.

"Are you sure?" Niall asks, squaring off against him.

"I - yeah," Harry says, a little taken aback by the confrontation.

"I don't believe you," Niall says and puts a hand on either of his shoulders. "Listen to me, if you have any feelings whatsoever for Louis Tomlinson, for fuck's sake, do something about it." He gives Harry a little shake then knocks him across the head, and if anyone saw it, Harry's pretty sure it would be considered workplace assault, but as it is, he loves Niall enough to not report him.

And okay, maybe he has feelings for Louis, but not  _love_ feelings. It's too early for that. They're still just fucking about, quite literally and quite not so literally. He's sure he'd have realized if any of those feelings transformed into something more. He'd know.

"If I fall in love with Louis," he says calmly despite the strange feeling in his chest, despite Niall staring at him like a lunatic, "you will be the second person to know. Or the third. Me first, then Louis, then you."

"Promise?" Niall asks.

Harry takes a deep breath and nods. "Promise."

\---

He spends the rest of the week convincing himself that he hasn't fallen in love with Louis. At first, the notion that he'd gone and done it without noticing sort of freaks him out and he spends forty-eight hours refusing to look directly at the boy he's dating in case anyone interprets it as  _that look_. But Louis, being Louis, catches on quickly enough and calls him out on it while they're grading homework over cups of tea.

"Why won't you look at me?" he demands, kicking Harry in the shin under the coffee table. "What have you done?"

"I haven't done anything!" Harry swears and stares at him, wide-eyed. He doesn't offer any further explanation, but when he allows his gazing habits to return to normal, Louis doesn't ask about it again.

The next evening, while he's on his knees with Louis' cock in his mouth, he has another revelation. If he were in love with Louis, he would have definitely told him already. As he hollows his cheeks and revels in the familiar weight of Louis on his tongue, he realizes that the only thing stopping him from blurting out how much he likes doing this, likes blowing him, likes making Louis feel good, is the fact that his mouth is otherwise occupied. If it weren't, he'd be spouting praises left and right, speaking his mind before the thoughts even formed, pleasure turning to words and bypassing his brain.

If he were in love with Louis, he'd have declared it to Louis, probably to the  _world_ , before the actual thoughts even registered.

He's not in love with Louis, not yet at least.

If he were, he wouldn't have to analyze it like this. He would just  _know_.

\---

"I can't believe I wasted ten quid on such a shit film," Louis moans on the way out of the cinema, not bothering to keep his voice down.

Harry just pulls him closer to his side, laughs as he covers Louis' mouth with his hand and tries to get him to shut up. They stumble along at the back of the crowd, bumping into the wall with their lack of coordination and causing several nearby cinema-goers to eye them warily.

"Will you walk in a straight line?" Harry whisper-giggles, nose pressed to Louis' ear. "Everyone probably thinks we're drunk."

He feels Louis' tongue dart out against his palm and lick a fat, wet stripe across his skin, exposing himself to the thousands of germs Harry's probably acquired during their evening together, touching door handles, theatre seats, armrests, etc. Harry removes his hand and wipes it on his trousers with a grimace. Louis trudges on.

"Can't a man express his distaste for the greedy film industry without being under the influence of alcohol?" he huffs dramatically as they squeeze out the door side-by-side and into the cool, early autumn air.

"You didn't even pay for your ticket," Harry reminds him, wallet sitting twenty pounds emptier in his back pocket.

"Then I'm expressing my distaste on your behalf."

"Thank you," Harry says, smiling as he removes his arm from around Louis' waist to tangle their fingers together instead. "That's very sweet of you. If you could convince the cinema manger to give us a refund, that would be much appreciated."

"I'd try, but we both know my charm and good looks are only suited for certain curly-haired saps," Louis sighs, leaning into Harry's side. "They're the only ones daft enough to fall for them."

"The only ones daft enough to sit through two hours of crude humor and poor acting as a  _date,"_  Harry concedes as Louis steers them in the direction of his car. It hadn't been Harry's first choice of transportation tonight. He'd intended to take Louis on his bike, wanted to feel the wind through his clothes, Louis pressed against his back, the freedom of a nighttime ride while they still had the chance, but even with the cool air sweeping in, change on its way and months of enclosed spaces, four wheels and, well, _safety_  ahead, Louis still refuses to breathe within five feet of his motorcycle.

"The stars look nice tonight," Louis comments, eyes fixed on the sky.

Harry forces his gaze away from the wonder-like fascination on his date's face to look up as well.

"Almost as nice as you," he says with a small, agreeable hum.

Louis squeezes his fingers. "Such a cheeseball," he sighs and shakes his head. "Don't know why I like you so much."

"Me neither," Harry shrugs and uses Louis' momentary distraction with the night's sky to steal a kiss, parting ways with him once they reach his car. "Let's drive over to that field you and Liam play football at. I want to lay out under the stars with you."

Louis gives him a look over the top of the car, one that's both disbelieving and utterly endeared, and Harry's heart jumps at the sight.

"Why are you grinning like that?" Louis asks, face splitting into his own soul-crushing smile.

Cheeks starting to hurt, Harry finds he can't even come up with a proper response. "I don't - I didn't even realize I was," he says dumbly.

"Careful or that crater in your face will cave in," Louis warns before he opens the door and slips inside.

The drive to the field passes by with a colorful dissection of the film they've just sat through.  _Worst film ever_ , Louis dubs it after thoroughly roasting the screenwriter and dragging the director down with him. Terrible jokes, no plot whatsoever, actors who couldn't act their way out of an unlocked prison cell. Once they pull off the road and park in the empty, unpaved lot, the only viable method Harry sees of getting Louis to shut up and step out of the car is to kiss him, lips warm, touch soft, smile threatening to get in the way.

"Come on, Lou," he laughs quietly and unbuckles Louis' seatbelt for him.

They grab a blanket from the boot of Louis' car, one reserved specifically for moments like these (and for the winter, when Louis worries about his car breaking down and not being able to keep warm), and spread it across the dewy grass, right in the middle of the field.

"Are you going to take your shirt off and show me how your skin sparkles in the moonlight?" Louis asks as Harry stretches out on his back and folds his hands beneath his head.

"Maybe in the springtime when it's warmer." Harry smiles softly, watching Louis settle beside him, legs going in the opposite direction, head falling to rest on his stomach. Harry tries to control the butterflies inside, tries to slow his breathing so as to not jostle Louis with every rise and fall of his diaphragm.

He hasn't even looked at the stars.

"Do you think we'll still be doing this in the spring?" Louis asks then, voice quiet in the open air. With the entire universe illuminated above them, the entire weight of it presses down on Harry's chest.

"What, lying here under the sky?" he asks with an unsteady laugh. "I don't know, Lou. We're going to have to eat eventually, use the toilet, find more blankets."

"You're an idiot," Louis sighs and lifts a hand to lightly swat at Harry's ribs. "Don't be stupid. You know what I mean."

"I do, yeah," Harry says quietly because he does. He's just not sure how to answer. "I mean... I would  _like_  to still be doing this. With you," he adds, even if it's a given. "I really like doing this with you."

"But?" Louis asks after a moment. "I'm sensing there's a  _but_  in there."

Harry shakes his head, closes his eyes. "No, there's no buts. I just... nobody can really predict the future, can they?" he says, absently lowering his left hand to tangle his fingers in Louis' hair. "Who knows what we'll be doing in a few months? We could be boyfriends, we could be married with ten cats, we could be so sick of each other by then that we don't even talk anymore."

"You really think that?" Louis asks, rolling onto his side to face Harry in the dark.

Harry's eyes flutter open, and even with the moon as their only source of light, he can still see the worry in the creases of Louis' forehead, the slight downturn of his mouth.

"No," he answers softly, smoothing his thumb over the indent between Louis' eyebrows. "No, I don't think we'd get sick of each other. I don't think we'd end up like that."

He's not sure how they might end up, but he knows he cares far too much about Louis to ever willingly rid himself of his charm, his wit, his shine. He could never in a million years, not in a million universes tire of that.

"I don't think so either," Louis agrees quietly and rolls again until he's lying flat on his front, lips pressed over Harry's thin button-up, warm on his stomach, proving Harry's point.

The first button glides smoothly through its hole, leaving the antennae of Harry's butterfly poking out into the dark. Louis kisses it, shifts the fabric to one side, kisses over Harry's ribs, the tender part of his chest, over his heart.

"Don't you want to enjoy the stars?" Harry asks, fingers brushing Louis' fringe off his forehead, breath shuddering as the last two buttons fall open and Louis' hand slips inside his shirt.

"Can I not enjoy you as well?" Louis mumbles against his skin before lifting his head and staring at Harry through the moonlight. "You make me want to kiss you all the time," he says, and if it weren't so dark, Harry suspects he might see a blush high on his cheeks. "You drive me all sorts of crazy. I don't know what it is you've done to me, but I can't seem to get enough of you."

"Come here," Harry says on instinct and pulls Louis on top of him.  _The feeling is mutual,_  he wants to say, but Louis seals their mouths together in a deep, practiced kiss before the words can twist their way around his tongue.

He's lightheaded before he knows it, drowning in the taste, the heat, the smooth glide of Louis' mouth on his. It's overpowering. He doesn't know what to do with it, feels lost for a moment, struggling to find his way back up with his hands spread over Louis' skin, his hips rolling, his body already reacting to the thigh slipped between his legs.

"I've never made love under the stars before," Louis murmurs, lips barely leaving Harry's, his nose still pressed against his cheek.

Harry falters. His teeth graze Louis' bottom lip, his breath stutters, his mind goes exceptionally blank.

"I-"

"I meant fuck," Louis amends with cast-iron composure, as if his initial choice of words hadn't held the weight of Harry's heart against him. He kisses the underside of Harry's jaw, teases several barely-there lovebites down the side of Harry's neck, laughs easily. "I've never  _fucked_  under the stars before," he says again.

"Neither have I," Harry answers, voice somehow steady. He's thankful, then, that Louis decides to busy himself with his neck, thankful that he can't see the slight panic in his eyes, feel the heaviness of his breath against his lips.

_No,_  he reminds himself, mentally shaking the thoughts trying to scale up the walls inside his head. He's not blind, he's not as daft as Louis might say he is, he would certainly know if there were any feelings akin to love lurking on the borders of this relationship. No one makes love unless they're in it. This is just sex. Louis knows that.

"Don't over-think it, Styles," Louis says into the dip of his shoulder as he rocks against him. "I can see the gears working in your head and I'm not even looking at you."

Harry lets out a nervous laugh and slides his hands to Louis' hips. "Sorry," he apologizes, embarrassed.

"Don't be," Louis says and drops a wet kiss to the corner of his mouth before sitting up, straddling one of his thighs.

Harry reaches for the button on his jeans. "Do you have a condom?" he asks as he pops it open and pulls down the zipper. Eyes almost adjusted to the dark, he glances up and sees Louis staring at him, lip bitten between his teeth.

"Have we used the emergency one in my wallet yet?" he asks, shifting forward in search of friction against Harry's hand.

Harry stills him, grabbing his hips again. "Yeah," he says, and then, with a sinking heart, "and mine too."

"Shit," Louis swears before he lets out a high, desperate, keening noise and folds himself back on top of Harry. "What now?" he groans, grinding subconsciously.

"Now," Harry says, meeting his teasing thrusts, "we get off like horny teenagers on a blanket in the middle of a field."

"You owe me one," is all Louis says as he unbuttons Harry's jeans and gets his cock out, wraps his hand around it and starts lazily stroking him to full hardness.

They're far enough off the main road that no one would ever see them or even notice their car parked fifty meters away. With a low moan, Harry slowly fucks up into Louis' fist before grabbing a handful of his shirt and tugging him all the way down. He kisses him then, slips his tongue past Louis' lips, makes it slow and languid to match the unhurried pace of the hand on his cock, the gentle rutting against his hip. It's a little too chilly for Louis to lose his shirt, but Harry rucks it up to his armpits, smooths his hands over the tight muscles in his chest, his stomach, lower and lower until he reaches the waistband of Louis' pants and gently hooks the elastic behind his balls.

"This okay?" he mumbles, pushing up on his elbows, his shirt slipping off his shoulders.

"Yeah," Louis breathes, letting go of Harry's cock to run his fingers through his curls and kiss him again. He lifts the knee between Harry's thighs and straddles his hips instead, shuffling higher up the blanket until their cocks meet and they can roll against each other. "It's not sex, but it's still - you know."

"Really fucking good?" Harry laughs, sitting up and wrapping his arms around Louis' bare waist.

"Yeah, really - fucking good," Louis agrees shakily and lowers his forehead to Harry's as Harry starts fucking up against him. "Can't believe you're - distracting me from all the stars."

"Shut up," Harry murmurs, grinning, "you just said you wanted to enjoy me too."

He glances down between them, at the dark shadows of their cocks, the hot slide against each other, and it's redundant when Louis hums and mumbles, "I am."

With that, Harry rolls them over and crawls up between Louis' legs, kisses him with intent while his hand takes both of them in the wide stretch of his fingers and jerks them off together.

It's hot. It's hot and tight, and with Louis' cock slipping right against his own, there's that extra bit of friction that has Harry moaning and whimpering into Louis' mouth in a matter of minutes, hips snapping forward to meet the rhythm of his hand.

It doesn't take long at all before everything gets to be too much and he feels his muscles start to contract, the pressure reaching it's peak. He tries to tell Louis, but Louis must already know, might even be there with him because he grabs his face in both hands and kisses him hard, kisses him like he needs him to breathe, and that's when Harry comes, spills over his fist, over both of their cocks, his body shuddering with it while bursts of heat spark up and down his spine.

He tightens his grip and fucks through it, doesn't let up until Louis comes as well, until he's trembling beneath him, thighs wrapped around his waist and fingers tangled in his curls.

It takes a moment before either of them have the strength or desire to move, before Harry slowly rolls off and wipes his sticky hand in the grass. When he turns back, Louis has his eyes on the stars again, his shirt still pushed past his nipples, cock going soft against his hip. He looks the epitome of debauched and beautiful, and Harry just stares at him for a while, wishing he could tattoo this image in his memory forever.

"You're being creepy," Louis says with a quiet laugh, only moving his eyes to meet Harry's. He pats the blanket next to him. "Come cuddle. Maybe we'll see a meteor."

"M'not being creepy, you're just really nice to look at," Harry sighs as he tucks himself into Louis' side, head near his armpit.

Louis strokes his hair as he closes his eyes.

"Do you remember what I said when we first started dating?" he asks, nails scratching lightly behind Harry's ear.

"You say a lot of things, Lou," Harry mumbles, only semi-coherent. He nuzzles his face into Louis' ribs, scoots closer. "Hard as I try, I can't remember every single one of them."

Louis laughs again, warm and soft. "I told you," he says, lowering his hand to rub at Harry's shoulder, "to let me know when you start to fall in love with me." He drags his fingertips over the goosebumps on Harry's skin, and Harry takes a long breath, tries to steady his heart.

"You say  _when_  as if it's a sure thing," he says slowly, afraid to move. With everything that's happened tonight - mentions of  _making love_ , uninhibited, reckless staring, this romancing under the stars - he's beginning to worry if Louis' seen in him the same thing Niall claims to have noticed, the thing Harry hasn't yet realized for himself. He hasn't fallen. Louis thinks he will.

"Just don't forget, okay?" he says, ignoring Harry's comment and dragging his button-up back over his shoulder.

Harry wraps an arm around Louis' middle, nods against his side. "I won't."

\---

It's busy chatter about herpes and syphilis that slows to a stop as soon as the door to Harry's classroom swings open and twenty-four pairs of eyes shift to the front of the room. Noticing the sudden drop in conversation, Harry picks his head up from the quiz he'd been grading and finds Louis hesitating in the doorway.

"Here to share your knowledge of STIs, Mr. Tomlinson?" Harry asks, raising a careful eyebrow.

"I would be, but I'd hate to upstage your methods of teaching, Mr. Styles," Louis replies, letting the door click shut behind him and casually crossing the room. "Sorry to interrupt," he apologizes with a wave of his hand for the class to continue their group work. He turns to Harry and places a steaming cup of coffee in the middle of his desk. "Thought you might be in need of an afternoon pick-me-up," he tells him quietly. The  _after kicking you awake so many times you threatened to make me sleep on the couch_  goes unsaid.

He pulls a chair up beside Harry's desk and straddles the back of it, elbows draping easily over the hard plastic edge. A few curious eyes linger on the two of them, on Louis' random intrusion, on Harry angling himself to make room for him, but they go back to their projects after a moment passes.

"Shouldn't you be teaching right now?" Harry asks, knowing full-well that if Louis had always had a free period this time, he'd have come to visit already.

"Shouldn't  _you?"_  Louis counters.

Harry prods him in the ankle with the toe of his boot. "They're working on presentations," he defends himself. "I needed time to grade their quizzes."

"And mine got called off to some seminar about applying to uni," Louis tells him. "How are the quizzes going?"

"They  _were_  going fine, but now you're distracting me." Harry shrugs.

"I can help," Louis offers. He steals a red pen from the painted flowerpot filled with pencils, biros, other teacherly tools, and grabs the stack of already graded quizzes from under Harry's elbow.

"I've already finished those," Harry points out, trying to take them back. "You're not helping at all," he says, aiming for serious and scolding but failing spectacularly when his mouth twitches into a grin despite his best efforts. He can't do this in front of his class. "Louis-  _Mr. Tomlinson."_

A few nearby heads turn, throwing them odd looks, and Louis sniggers, pushes Harry's hand away from the papers in his lap.

"I'm just going to doodle in the corners," he sighs when Harry huffs out an annoyed breath. "I promise no crude body parts, though they'd be completely appropriate for this class."

"Please, don't get me in trouble," is all Harry says before he gives up his control and lets Louis do as he pleases. He'll have to go through each quiz again after this, just to make sure Louis' additions aren't abominations.

They sit in comfortable near-silence for the remaining fifteen minutes of the day, Harry passing Louis each quiz after marking the final grade at the top, occasionally commenting on his doodles whenever he finds them particularly adorable.

"That's cute," he says about a little lion roaring across the white expanse of the page. "Reminds me of you."

Louis clicks his pen twice and draws two smiley faces in the zeroes of the same girl's one-hundred percent grade.

"I remind you of a lion?"

"Feisty but strong," Harry explains, keeping his voice down, barely lifting his eyes from his paper. "Plus, you've both got cute noses and the same hair."

He hears Louis let out a quiet laugh beside him, feels his knee bump his beneath the desk.

"Thanks, love," Louis says, and Harry chances a sideways glance to catch the little grin on his face. "Know what animal you remind me of?"

"Tell me," Harry says, curious.

Louis looks him dead in the eyes. "A baby deer," he says. "Or a frog."

The snort of undignified laughter that bursts from Harry is enough to turn several more heads. He tries to cover it up by wiping stupidly at his mouth and clearing his throat, struggling to get his expression under control.

"Thank you," he says, voice see-sawing right on the edge between serious and slightly manic. "That's very... um. Informative."

"You're welcome," Louis says, satisfied.

He takes the final paper from Harry's desk and draws a frog in the lower corner with bulging eyes and a wide smile, adding a dimple for good measure. Harry shuffles it together with the complete stack of papers, slips a paperclip over them and drops them into his grading folder. There's only a minute of class remaining.

"Alright," he says loud enough for everyone to stop what they were working on and turn to face the front of the room. "We've got about a minute left until the bell rings. You can leave your desks where they are. I'll give you twenty minutes at the start of our next lecture to meet with your groups again and finalize any last-minute details for your presentations."

"Are we presenting next class?" one of the boys near the front asks.

"Two groups will go next class and the rest will go the one after that," Harry explains as he rounds the front of his desk. "I know I didn't do much teaching today," he says, "but I hope we all learned through our respective research, that while you might think sex without a condom will  _feel better,_ we can all agree that contracting a sexually transmitted infection will not feel good at all."

He waits until he sees at least a few heads nod to prove they're listening, before he allows everyone to start packing their books a few seconds early.

The bell rings and everyone files out. Everyone except Louis, who takes his usual seat on the desk in the back corner of the room, far from the door and as out-of-sight as possible. Harry leaves him hanging, if only for a few minutes while he tidies up the papers on his desk, packs his own notebooks and lesson plans away. He can't just throw himself at Louis the moment the school day ends. What if a student accidentally left a book behind and came barging in on them?

"You're being very thorough," Louis comments from his perch at the opposite end of the room as Harry sprays water all over the chalkboard and makes sure he cleans every last speck of chalk dust.

"You're not usually here when the bell rings," Harry reminds him without turning around. He can feel Louis' eyes on his back, on the contours of muscle visible through his silky shirt. He makes sure to stretch far enough when cleaning the top of the board so that his shirt rides up above his hips. "At least wait until the buses leave," he says before abandoning the chalkboard and catching Louis staring, lip caught between his teeth. Harry smirks.

"Come here, please?" Louis asks calmly.

Harry shakes his head and drags Louis' chair back to where he found it. He takes a sip of his coffee, still hot, still delicious, just the right amount of milk. "Mmm, this is good," he hums before swallowing another sip.

"Harry," Louis tries again.

Harry sighs. "Yeah, alright," he decides and kicks the door shut on his way to the back of the room. He finds himself leaning in for a kiss before he's even situated between Louis' dangling legs, the desire to feel those lips against his own far outweighing the desire to keep this secret, keep it private.

"I think we should get tested," Louis says as soon as they've satisfied their immediate needs and start to pull away.

Harry blinks at him, hands on his thighs, all the breath suddenly gone from his lungs. "What?" he tries, but it's barely more than a squeak.

"I don't want to need a condom every time we have sex," Louis says, slowly running his hands up and down Harry's sides. "I don't want to resort to sloppy hand jobs whenever we run out. I want to feel you. I want you to feel me. I think we should do this."

"You... you want it without one?" Harry asks, words sticking to his throat. It's like he's suddenly developed a fever, too hot and too cold all at once.

This is a lot. This is bordering on serious relationship talk. Harry can count on one hand the number of times he's gone without a condom, the first being his first time with another virgin, the other three when he was being stupid and careless with his brief boyfriend in uni. For someone whose job it is to make sure kids get tested and talk to their partners and be safe, he's never really had this conversation before.

"I only want it if you want it," Louis says, and Harry can see the slight crease of worry forming between his eyebrows, hear the beginning tones of regret in his voice.

He takes Louis' hands off his hips and kisses his knuckles, lays them flat on his chest with his fingers spread over his heart.

"I want that," he says quietly, arousal already heating up his body, the possibility of going bare with the beautiful boy before him causing his pulse to quicken. "I want that," he says again and kisses Louis' lips. "I want to feel you inside of me, all of you, only you."

"You better stop talking like that or you're going to have to bend me over this desk in a minute," Louis warns, but there's a lightness to his threat, a sense of relief. He's ridiculous. Of course Harry would want this with him. The only reason he hadn't toyed with the idea any sooner was because, well... he'd never really thought about it. Sex without a condom is a serious relationship thing, and as far as he knows, they aren't in a serious relationship.

He crushes his lips to Louis' in a kiss that's alarmingly rough for the setting they're in. If there wasn't always the small chance someone might walk in on them, he certainly  _would_  bend Louis over the desk and take him right there. Also if he didn't have morals. But he does have morals, and fucking Louis in the back of his classroom, on the desk of some poor, innocent student would send him straight to hell.

The door clicks open as soon as Louis' hands find their way into his shirt. Harry has just enough sense to pull their mouths apart before he hears Niall's voice ring out behind him.

"Harry, I'm signing you up for the charity dodge- Oh. Hey, Louis," he says in surprise. It's a normal amount of surprise, thank fucking god. He has no idea what he's just walked in on.

Belatedly and in a daze, Harry realizes that Louis' hands are still on his chest.

"I'm about to go into cardiac arrest," he whispers so, so quietly, feeling faint.

Louis pats his chest over the frantic beating of his heart, his face as flustered as Harry's feels, only inches away. "And that, young Harold," he says loudly, voice somehow unwavering as he moves his hands together over Harry's sternum, "is how you determine your bra size."

"What are you two going on about now?" Niall asks, bewildered.

"Harry's been going to the gym more," Louis lies, fixing one of Harry's curls back in place. "He thought his pecs had gotten so big he might need to start wearing a bra, so I Googled how to measure bra sizes, and I'm sorry to say, Harry, but I don't think you'd qualify for one just yet. Maybe if you got some of those sticker things for your nipples, that would be enough."

Niall snorts with disbelief and makes his way over to them. "You're both the stupidest people I have ever met," he says and claps Harry on the back.

Harry wants to agree, almost cries with how stupid he  _knows_  they are. Christ. His heart feels like it's fallen out of his arse. No wonder Louis is a drama teacher; that was improvisation at its finest.

"Niall, you wound us with your constant insults," Louis sighs and nudges Harry out from between his legs so he can hop off the desk.

Harry finds he can barely move, still hasn't found his voice.

"Louis you wound me with your blatant disregard for what's right in front of you," Niall counters.

"I don't disregard it. I just had my tongue in its mouth. I was just discussing having it fuck me on one of these desks," Louis says truthfully. Now that the threat of discovery isn't real, he can talk about it all he wants and Niall will never believe him.

Niall takes a deep breath and chooses to flat-out ignore him. He turns to Harry instead and slaps a neon orange flyer to his chest. "You're signing up for this," he says before Harry can even read the thing. "You too," he adds and shoots Louis a dark look.

Harry clears his throat. "A charity dodgeball tournament?" he reads, eyes scanning over the paper. "Four teams of teachers only, tickets are five pounds for students, ten for anyone else, all proceeds will be donated to the Believe in Magic charity foundation."

"Niall, this is for charity," says Louis, gently prying the flyer from Harry's fingers. "You don't have to threaten us to sign up for it."

"Of course we'll do it," Harry agrees. The three of them and Liam are some of the youngest, most agile, athletic teachers in the school. If they don't volunteer, someone more fragile might take their place instead.

"Good." Niall nods and pulls a sign-up sheet from his back pocket. "There's also a bake sale beforehand, so I'm putting your name for that too, Harry."

"Okay," Harry says just as Louis pouts and asks, "Why not me?"

Niall fixes him a serious look. "Louis, the last time you made me pancakes, I had no fucking idea what I was eating."

"Pancakes, obviously," Louis answers, a bit miffed.

"Obviously," Niall scoffs. "Anyway, the tournament is in two weeks. We don't get to choose teams because they're supposed to be evenly matched, but just know that mine is going to win."

"You'll probably get old Mrs. Hammond on your team," Louis says out of spite.

Old Mrs. Hammond would probably break a hip if she even thought about volunteering, but Harry doesn't mention it. He tunes out the sound of Louis and Niall bickering and just signs his name on the list.

\---

They get tested that weekend with results available over the phone after seven days.

Auditions for Louis' drama start on Monday. As chaperone, Harry shows up every afternoon with all the support Louis needs, a cup of tea, coffee for himself, and a mantra of  _Team Tomlinson_  beating in his heart. He's never done this before. At this point in term last year, he'd been foolish enough to listen when Liam warned him not to help. He should have helped. If anyone was meant to handle Louis at his most stressed, most overworked, most needy, it would be him.

It all goes well enough at first, a few ice-breaking activities, breaking off into large groups, small groups, reading portions of the script, monologue coaching. Harry follows Louis around each afternoon and goes back to his flat each night, cooks him dinner, tucks him into bed, gives him complimentary blowjobs and long kisses goodnight.

It's a little boring, sitting through the same monologue audition day after day, the same lines, same inflections, same silly hand gestures and strolls around the stage. But it's a little mesmerizing, too, watching Louis do his thing. Somehow through all of it, Louis manages to find faults or praises in every audition. He keeps the kids encouraged and enthused. He continuously warms Harry's heart from across the theater, all while he's sat alone in the center of the seats.

It makes Harry want to pick up a script and try his own hand at acting. It also makes him want to crawl into Louis' bed with him, massage the tension out of his shoulders, kiss the stress away until they both can sleep.

They make it all the way to Thursday before the first near-disaster.

"What are you still doing here?" Harry asks, meeting Louis in his classroom three minutes before the next wave of monologues are set to start. He'd gotten an emergency text to come to his room, no explanation given, and now, with Louis frantically tearing his desk inside out and upside down, he's still waiting for one.

"I can't find my notes," is the first thing out of Louis' mouth. "My clipboard - I think I left it at home. Shit- it has my checklist in it, my rubric, the actual script itself. I'm fucked, Harry, I can't-"

"Shh, hey," Harry quickly soothes him, slipping behind the desk and grabbing Louis' searching hands. He's been waiting for this, on high alert all week per Liam's advice."Relax for me, will you? Deep breaths, babe."

Louis inhales audibly through his nose, blows it out in a long huff from his mouth.

"Do you remember where you last saw it?" Harry asks, keeping his voice calm and gentle.

"If I did I'd have it in my hands by now," Louis answers with a worried shake of his head.

"Will you be able to stall for twenty minutes if I drive back to your flat and check for you?" Harry asks.

"You don't have your bike," Louis points out. "I drove you this morning."

"I can drive your car?" Harry suggests. It's the only way this is going to work. Even if Louis  _hates_  letting other people use his things - mainly his  _expensive_  things after an unfortunate incident involving Niall and a three-week-old Macbook - allowing Harry to borrow his car is the only chance he has.

"You can trust me, Lou," Harry promises.

Louis takes another deep breath and briefly closes his eyes. "I know," he sighs, letting it all out and blinking back at Harry with earnest eyes. "I do trust you. Please, just. Please be careful," he says, "or I swear I'll set your motorcycle on fire."

"Charming," Harry remarks and gives him a quick, soft kiss. "We could walk to work together, then."

"I'm serious, Harry."

"I know, Lou." Harry nods, squeezing his shoulders. "I'm a good driver. I'll be there and back in the shortest amount of time the speed limit will allow."

Louis rolls his eyes and digs his keys out of the mess on his desk. "I trust you," he says again and drops them in Harry's hands with a final sigh. "Thank you."

Harry kisses him one last time before running out the door, desperate to help.

Lucky for everyone involved, he finds the clipboard and all of Louis' notes in the back of his car, scattered across the floor and hidden under the back of the driver's seat. He grabs the papers, shuffles them back into order, throws Louis' empty coffee cup in the bin on the way inside and delivers the clipboard to him without a problem.

But that isn't the end of it. One of the hopeful leads doesn't show up, another nearly falls off the stage, the main spotlight burns out, and each audition takes nearly twice as long as expected. By the time the evening catches up to them and they find themselves trudging through the car park, exhausted and both a little grumpy, Louis wordlessly passes Harry his keys and lets him drive home without any arguments. He falls asleep in the passenger seat as the radio quietly hums between then, and he only wakes up two hours later with his head in Harry's lap and a blanket thrown over his legs, the television broadcasting a marathon of _Friends._

The following morning, Harry watches Louis post the list of callbacks, then proceeds to watch him doubt his choices over and over and over again until he has to forcibly push Louis into the staff toilets to kiss him and talk him back to earth.

He doesn't see Louis again until their lunch break, and that's when things start to noticeably worsen.

He's two bites into his avocado salad, one finger scrolling aimlessly through his Instagram feed, when the break room door bangs open and slams shut around a blur of stressed and anxiety-ridden drama teacher.

"Jesus," Liam mutters into his ham and cheese sandwich as Harry tentatively scoots a few inches to the left to give Louis room to sit. "What's his problem now?"

"Your mum's my problem," snaps Louis in what has to be his worst comeback yet. Louis never resorts to  _your mum_  jokes. Louis is consistently above  _your mum_  jokes.

"Hey, you okay?" Harry asks, worried. He puts a gentle hand on Louis' arm, just above his elbow, doesn't even think about moving it even when Liam clearly notices.

"Yes, darling, everything's just  _peachy,"_  Louis answers through gritted teeth, trying his hardest not to snap at Harry too. "I just had the deputy head teacher drop by to observe one of my lessons, the girl I'd hoped would get the lead in the drama just withdrew from her audition,  _and_  I managed to leave all of my food for today in the refrigerator at home."

"I thought you went back in to get it?" Harry says softly, voice laced with so much genuine concern that Louis can't help but let some of his ironclad walls down.

"I did," he sighs, "but then I got distracted remembering to order pizzas for the auditions this afternoon and I never actually put the food in my bag."

"You two carpooled again?" Niall asks from the opposite end of the table, just now glancing up from his phone.

"They've been carpooling for the past two weeks," Liam comments as if it's old news. "I haven't seen Harry's bike outside in days."

Harry scoops a bit of salad onto his fork and offers it to Louis who reluctantly opens his mouth and eats it. "We prefer to live a green lifestyle," he explains as Louis chews and nods in agreement. "Carpooling's all the rage. You can split with me if you'd like," he adds after Louis swallows.

"I need real food, H," Louis says and shakes his head. He turns around and eyes the other half of Liam's sandwich, the layers and layers of protein and cheese, food that, admittedly, would probably keep him from going hungry a lot longer than Harry's vegetable-heavy salad.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" Liam asks, frowning.

"Have I told you how handsome you look today?" Louis asks, batting his eyelashes, reaching for the sandwich.

Liam slaps his hand away. "It's not my bloody fault you forgot your food at home," he says. "There's a cafeteria downstairs - buy your own sandwich and leave mine alone."

"You're such a dick, Liam," Louis mutters and kicks Liam's chair. Hard.

"What the fuck, Louis?" Liam swears, glaring at him. "What's your _problem?"_

"I already told you my problem. Why are you being such a fuckwit?"

"Louis, leave him alone," Harry sighs and tugs at Louis' sleeve. "Just eat my salad, I don't care."

"I know what his problem is," Niall chimes in before Louis can deck Liam in the face like he looks like he wants to. "Louis needs to get laid," he proclaims for the entire table to hear.

It's a bold enough statement that Louis' concentration breaks, his eyes rolling almost in a complete circle around the back of his head.

"No," he says with a disbelieving look, almost offended, "that is definitely  _not_  my problem."

Niall narrows his eyes and leans his elbows on the table. "When was the last time you had sex?" he asks.

Harry shifts guiltily in his seat, Louis' knee touching his under the table and suddenly ready to ignite a fire through the leg of his trousers. Five days ago. They had full, cock-in-arse sex five days ago.

"Sunday night," Louis supplies. "And it was very satisfying. Couldn't walk in a straight line the next morning, courtesy of-"

"If you say Harry, I'm going to hit you," Niall threatens darkly. "I meant for real, not some twisted fantasy bullshit you make up to fuck with my head."

"Niall, I have had more sex in the past six months than I know how to comprehend," Louis says smugly with Harry sitting in uncomfortable and yet also entirely smug silence next to him. "Maybe it's  _you_  who needs to get laid."

"From the defensive tone of your voice, I'd say that's untrue," Niall concludes. Louis opens his mouth to protest but Niall silences him with a hand. "We're going out tonight. All of us. I don't care where, but we're going."

Louis lets out an exasperated sigh and props his elbows on the table, meeting Niall somewhere in the middle and leaving Harry behind. "I don't think that's very fair to Harry," he says, hardly even acknowledging him.

Niall does though, fixing Harry a calculated, steely look. "If Harry doesn't think it's fair," he says slowly, deliberately, causing a weird shiver to run down the back of Harry's spine, "then Harry can fucking do something about it."

Harry swallows. It's a hint. He knows it's a hint, and it doesn't even matter because he  _has_  done something about it, lots of things in fact, and he knows Louis wouldn't dream of hooking up with a stranger in a club just because Niall wants him to, but he still doesn't like the way any of this is making him feel.

Bloody Niall, thinking he's being clever with this.

Before Harry finds it within himself to respond, Liam offers up another brilliant suggestion.

"Harry can be your wingman," he says to Louis.

Louis' knuckles whiten around his elbows. "I'm not going," he says with an air of finality.

"Me neither," Harry adds, refusing to get dragged into this mess any further.

Ignoring each of their dissents, Niall rises from the table and gives the two of them one last, icy-blue glare. "I'm coming to get you both at ten o'clock. If you're not ready by then, I'm dragging each of you out by the hair on your shitty heads."

Without another word, he grabs his phone off the table and stalks out of the lunch room.

\---

"You texted Niall not to come over, right?" Louis tries to confirm for at least the seventeenth time as he follows Harry out of the shower and into the bedroom. "I swear to god, Harry, if he or Liam - especially  _Liam_  - come knocking on my door tonight, I'm going to need you to collect me from the police station in the morning."

"Noted," Harry nods and drops his towel on the floor. "I texted from both our phones during callbacks. If either of them shows up, we're finding new friends."

"I still can't believe Niall had the audacity to tell me I'm the one who needs to have sex when I know for a fact he hasn't been with anyone but his left hand in  _months_."

"He's just jealous of our  _imaginary_  sex," Harry says, tugging Louis over to the bed by the towel around his hips. "All of our bragging about fucking each other daily has finally gotten to him. He thinks if he tries to hook you up with someone tonight, I'll get jealous enough to make a move."

He pulls Louis into his lap and rolls them over, bracing most of his weight on his forearms as he immediately starts worshipping the glorious body beneath his with his hot mouth.

"Would you?" Louis asks, tangling his fingers in Harry's wet curls and holding them away from his face.

"Would I what?" Harry murmurs against his stomach. He dips his tongue into Louis' bellybutton, enjoys the way Louis' muscles flutter in response, rippling under his fingertips.

"Would you get jealous?" Louis clarifies breathlessly. "If you saw me with someone else at the club?"

Harry drags his mouth all the way up Louis' stomach, his chest, hands following, smoothing over his collarbones, his neck, cupping his jaw.

"Insanely," he says and crushes his lips to Louis' in a kiss that gives all the explanation he might need.

Even working against his tongue, the tension from a long week's worth of auditions and late nights resonates in the way Louis moves against him. While Harry keeps his kisses smooth, soft, satisfying, deep, the pent-up anxiety in Louis' head has his body pulled taut, strung-up like a bow, ready to snap at any moment.

"Let go of it, Lou," Harry urges, running his thumb along the line of Louis' jaw to try and coax his mouth open a bit more. "Just relax, I've got you."

He sucks on Louis' lower lip, nips at it, gets the blood pulsing through it, teases until Louis' jaw finally unclenches and a soft moan escapes into the quiet of the bedroom. Slowly, Harry makes his way down the rest of Louis' body, fingers slipping into all of his dips and curves, mouth leaving a wet trail down his neck, his collarbones. He pauses to take each of Louis' peaked nipples in his mouth, rolling them beneath his tongue, licking at the tips, blowing cool air over the spit-shiny buds and watching goosebumps rise over Louis' chest.

"If Niall thought I could get anything  _close_  to this out of a one night stand," Louis comments, arching into Harry's touch, "I'm afraid he's sorely mistaken."

Harry tilts his head to meet Louis' eyes as he finishes sucking his left nipple, pulling off with an obscene slurping noise.

"Why do we always talk about Niall during sex?" he asks with a frown. "Don't even think about him for the rest of the night. Let me make you feel good. Just think about that."

"Think about you?" Louis rephrases, raising a knowing eyebrow.

Harry drops an open-mouthed kiss to the top of his abdomen.

"Yes," he says and proceeds to kiss all the way down the rest of his stomach, stopping just to take the head of his cock in his mouth when he gets low enough.

With another goal in mind, he doesn't spend much time suckling at the head, pressing his tongue to the slit, working Louis to full hardness. He runs his thumb up the underside, follows it with a wide, wet lick, then grabs the pillow from beside Louis' head and positions it under his hips.

"Knees up," he says, wrapping long, ringed fingers around Louis' ankles and kissing the inside of each calf with soft reverence. He folds Louis' legs up to his chest and kisses a line from ankle to knee, shifting back up the bed after a moment to savor a drawn-out kiss from Louis' mouth instead. "You're still not relaxed," he murmurs, nudging his nose along Louis' cheek. "Auditions are over and there's no school for two days. We have no where to go. Relax."

"Make me," Louis says before he pushes at Harry's shoulders and sends him in the direction he wants him most.

Obliging, Harry shuffles halfway down the bed, his ankles crossing behind him as he settles on his stomach, palms spread over the backs of Louis' thighs. He grinds against the mattress, the sheets pooled around his hips, just once, just enough to relieve some of the tension spreading through his heated veins, then he focuses, turns all of his attention to Louis, to the boy waiting open and willing before him.

The first touch is just a kiss. He presses his lips, soft as can be, over Louis' hole, teasing, testing the waters, not yet diving in. He kisses the inside of Louis' thighs. He kisses the underside of his cock, his balls, every inch of his lovely, inviting skin before he finally returns to his destination and lets his hot breath linger.

"How long do you think you could last with just my mouth on you?" he asks, words ghosting over Louis' tight entrance, a shiver running across his skin.

"If you're just going to tease me like that," Louis starts, already breathless, "I could go all fucking night."

"Don't bloody swear," Harry mutters and pinches the softest part of Louis' arse. "It's fucking rude."

"You're fucking rude," Louis snaps as Harry flattens his tongue over his hole and sets to work.

The sound Louis makes at the first swipe is so gorgeous that Harry immediately tries to commit it to memory. He smoothes his thumbs over Louis' cheeks and spreads him further apart, dips his tongue once more and relishes in the way Louis' body instantly reacts.

Louis' fingers find his hair in less than a minute. They twist and pull, scrabble for purchase, lighter than they'd be in the fine sheets, but still hard enough for Harry to lose himself in the feeling, to let go, to start giving Louis everything he deserves.

He makes it messy. He's deliberately sloppy, tongue slipping into every space he can reach, lips working just as hard as the rest of his mouth, sucking, kissing, branding Louis' skin with every bit of attention. He needs this. They both do. Louis, to unwind, to let go, to surrender himself to the thrumming in his blood and forget about his entire week. Harry, to simply make up for the amount of orgasms he's both been denied and missed giving while Louis martyred himself to temporary celibacy.

All for the love of art.

Harry is inspired.

He knows he starts making too much noise when Louis starts laughing from atop his bed of pillows, fingers going soft with adoration in his hair.

"You sound like you fell straight out of a porno and into my bedroom," he says a little deliriously as Harry probes his hole with his tongue and tries to look him in the eye from between his legs.

He ignores Louis and pushes a finger in, the slide made easy from all the gathered spit.

"Shit," Louis groans, causing Harry to smirk against the stretch of his rim.

He flicks his tongue, crooks his finger, hums in satisfaction as the last bit of Louis unwinds and goes pliant beneath him. Mission accomplished. Almost. All he has to do is make Louis come so hard he cries, and then he's free to cuddle him, spend the rest of the weekend with him in bed, kiss him like crazy without fearing any residual wrath from the unyielding week he's had.

It takes two fingers and the warm, wet press of Harry's tongue, but they get there in the end. Louis shudders beneath him, hole clenching, thighs quaking, Harry's name spilling from his lips, and it's beautiful, the perfect picture of debauchery, totally worth the crick in his neck.

He laps at Louis' hole until Louis starts squirming, until Louis starts making these delightful little hiccuping noises, until Louis pulls at his hair, pulls him up, up, up, and lets Harry get off against his hip while he kisses him hard.

The doorbell sounds just as his orgasm rolls through him, as he pants wordlessly against Louis' mouth.

"Who the  _fuck,"_  Louis seethes, unravelling all of Harry's hard work in less than two seconds.

Harry drops his face into the curve of Louis' neck and groans, his cock still pulsing helplessly.

"Leave it," he begs, voice rough. "Just leave it. He'll go away. He can't wait for us forever."

"But he will," Louis cries because they both know it's true. "He'll wait. I can't do this. I'm going to tell him. I'm going to tell him we're fucking, we're busy, we can't be bothered with the club. He needs to go."

"He won't believe you," Harry sighs into the pillows.

"You look obscene right now," Louis says. "He's going to fucking believe me."

Before Harry can pin him down and hold him hostage under the covers, argue with him until he stays, Louis slips out from beneath his dead weight and cleans himself off just enough to throw on a t-shirt and the first pair of joggers he finds. He leaves the room without another word, tension already stringing his shoulders tight again.

Harry could honestly scream.

Lacking every sense of urgency but feeling the need to get dressed all the same, he pushes himself to his knees and towels the mess off his stomach. He raids Louis' closet for his favorite oversized hoodie and slips his legs into a pair of pants, and that's it. That's all he's willing to wear. He's not going to the club. He's not going to hang around and entertain his idiot friends.

The first thing Niall does when he sees him approach the doorway is roll his eyes and shake his head.

"I can't believe you two would go to such lengths to fuck with me," he says as he twirls his car keys around his index finger. "What did you do? Slobber all over your pillow for five minutes just to get your mouth to look like that?"

Harry, who already knows how red and swollen his lips get after going down on Louis, tells him the honest truth. "No, I just finished eating Louis out."

"Told you," Louis mutters as if he'd already tried explaining this. "We've been dating for the past six months. Surprise! Now get out so we can have more sex."

Niall shakes his head again, fiercely unconvinced. "I've had enough of your bullshit," he says, crossing his arms and forcing his way into the house. "There's no way I'm going to believe that. I would  _know_  it if you were dating and you're obviously  _not_. If you were, you'd have no problem realizing that you're in love with each other, and I wouldn't have to figure it out for you."

He drops onto the couch and refuses to move, leaving Harry standing, heart in his throat, inches away from a very tense Louis.

"I'm giving you ten minutes to get dressed and ready, and then we're leaving," is all Niall says.

Louis is the first to move.

\---

"This tastes like watered-down cranberries and horse piss."

"Then don't drink it," Harry mutters, pushing Louis' glass to the center of the table. He takes another sip of his mojito and checks the time on his phone. It's only been an hour. Too early to leave, too early to take Louis home and never listen to Niall again. He's only had one other drink. He doesn't even want to get drunk.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Louis asks, aiming his question across the table at Niall. "You do know Harry and I were doing just fine without you."

"Oh, shut up," Niall scoffs, having already refused to believe Louis' most blatant confession yet. They've been dating for six months. They've never said that to any of their friends before, only to their mums and sisters, their nosey, perceptive families. Six months. That's, like. Half a year.

"I thought we came here to be Louis' wingmen," Liam says over the top of his pint glass. "What's so terrible about lads' night?"

"Nothing," Louis says after a pause. "I just don't want to pull anyone."

"But if you did," Niall starts, curious, "who in this club would it be?" He makes a sweeping gesture around the room, offering Louis a chance to survey the sea of people at the nearby tables, the bar, on the dance floor, and Louis actually looks. He twists his head around, darts his eyes to each face, each body, each possible shag, and Harry's stomach sinks.

"He said he doesn't want to," he reiterates, just as Louis points over Liam's shoulder and says, "That one."

The air whooshes out of Harry's lungs faster than Niall's head snaps around. "What?" Harry breathes, feeling suddenly ill. He doesn't like this game.

"Which one?" Liam asks, peering behind him.

"Tall, dark hair, glasses," Louis describes, ignoring Harry's labored breathing, his questioning stare. "The fit one in the grey shirt."

"Lou," Harry murmurs helplessly. He tugs at Louis' sleeve but Louis shrugs him off. "Louis, what are you doing?"

"Think you could get him for me, Niall?" Louis asks.

Niall spins back around, his face lit up like a thousand suns. "You want me to be your wingman?" he asks, like this is a gift from the gods. "You want me to get that guy for you?"

_No,_  Harry almost shouts. No, no, no,  _no, no_. He doesn't know who Louis thinks he's kidding or what kind of twisted game he's trying to play, but it's sending his heart into a fit of hysterics. It's making his skin feel weird and hot and cold all over, and it's making his chest hurt.

"Yes," Louis answers, and it feels like the absolute end of the world until he quickly adds, "and take Liam with you. The more the better. Make sure you mention my great arse."

And the world survives. Louis would never try to pull someone with his arse. It's one of his nicest physical aspects, but Harry knows deep down in his bruised heart that Louis' dignity is far greater than that. He would never.

As soon as Niall and Liam slip out of the booth and head toward the man Louis described, Louis takes Harry's hand under the table and squeezes.

"Come on," he says and drops a quick kiss to Harry's flushed cheek. "You didn't think I'd honestly abandon you for that bloke over there? He's too tall for me. Looks too smart."

Harry takes the backhanded compliment with ease and follows when Louis starts tugging him out of the booth. He's not sure what he thought Louis was trying to do at first, but he definitely understands now. Diversion tactics, an escape plan, handing Niall the opportunity to lose at his own fucking game while they sneak off for some real fun.

Harry's back hits the bathroom wall before the door even swings shut. He doesn't care. This was supposed to be their night, their weekend. They deserve this.

"I just want to kiss you for hours," Louis says in between sloppy, tender presses of his lips, perhaps left more pliant from their earlier rendezvous than Harry originally thought. "Is that too much to ask?"

"We could go home," Harry offers, mouthing at the side of Louis' neck. "We could call a cab, hide in here until it comes, sneak out the back door."

"Niall would kill us," Louis laughs breathily.

"I don't care."

"Me neither."

Harry grabs Louis' hips and pulls him forward, latching onto his mouth again and enjoying the fruity taste of cocktails on his tongue. He tastes so sweet, the sweetest, the most intoxicating Harry's ever had the pleasure of kissing. He tastes like peaches and cranberries, like coconut rum and sugar. He tastes like Louis. Harry moans softly, hands sliding lower, spreading over Louis'  _prized_  arse, letting the moment consume him.

"Where's your phone?" Louis mumbles against his parted lips.

Harry kisses him three more times. "Front pocket, right side." His breath catches as eager fingers slip into his pocket and brush his cock through the thin liner.  _"My_  right side," he quickly corrects to Louis' amusement.

"Oh, but I found something else I might like." Louis smirks and runs his fingers down the swell of Harry's length.

Harry's only option is to kiss the smug look off Louis' face and pull the hand from the front of his trousers. He doesn't hear the sound of the door swinging open behind them, doesn't hear the sharp inhale or the first, quiet  _"shit, sorry lads,"_  but he hears the second gasp, the louder, more pronounced intake of breath. He hears the "Oh my god," the "oh, fuck." He hears Liam.

This time, his brain isn't so quick to catch up. It takes another two seconds before Louis' lips fully leave his and by the time Harry's eyes make it to the door, Liam's already halfway out, heels disappearing as the door closes behind him.

"We should go after him," Louis says after a moment, voice unsure.

A heavy wave of guilt crashes over Harry. They never meant for Liam to find out like this, not for him or even for Niall. They would have told them together when they were ready. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. They're better friends than this.

"Yeah," he agrees shakily, panic rising in his throat. "Yeah, we probably should."

"Come on," Louis says.

With an anchoring hand on the small of his back, Harry follows him through the mass of club-goers, sticking close behind, searching the crowd for Liam's buzzed head. He nearly trips twice, distracted by the pounding of his heart, the sick churning in his stomach. Liam knows. The first of their friends, poor, untimely Liam had to walk in on them in the middle of - oh, no. Was Louis' hand really in his pocket at the time?

"Louis, what do we tell him?" Harry hisses frantically into Louis' ear from behind.

Louis twists his head around, staring as if it should be obvious. "The truth, Harry. We have to tell him the truth." His eyes catch on something over Harry's shoulder. "Oh, god," he says, cringing sympathetically as he spots Liam fishing a cigarette from his jacket pocket and heading outside. "We've stressed him so much he's gone for a smoke. Have you seen Niall anywhere?"

"No," Harry says, glancing around, and then, "there, he's still at the bar."

Still chatting up that guy for Louis, still being the loyal wingman nobody ever seriously wanted him to be.

"Make sure he doesn't see us," Louis instructs before pulling them away and after Liam.

Having just learned the hard way the troubles of hiding things from friends, Harry reluctantly ducks his head and tries not to attract Niall's attention. They manage to slip out the door and onto the lamp-lit street without being seen, finding Liam a ways down from the entrance, a puff of smoke billowing from the end of his cigarette. His head whips around when he hears their approach, betrayal evident in the deep frown and angry creases of his face. He stubs his cigarette out, takes a weighted breath, catches sight of Harry's hand still on Louis' back, and turns to keep walking.

"Liam, wait," Louis starts, taking several hurried steps forward. "We want to explain."

"Explain what?" Liam asks, rounding on them, sounding just as hurt as his face gives away. "That you've been lying to me? That you couldn't trust me with something like this? That I'm not a good enough friend to know?"

His words echo around the street, and Harry flinches, feels Louis do the same. He never imagined it happening like this.

"This... this wasn't the first time, was it?" Liam asks when no one answers. "How long has this been going on for? How long have you been...?"

"Six months," Harry answers because Liam deserves the truth. "We've been dating for six months."

"Six months?" Liam repeats breathlessly as the words register his head. Like clockwork, the gears shift into place, the cogs turn, the clues burst like sunlight behind his dark eyes. "Six months, that's... that's what you said to Niall earlier. You said you've been together - dating for six months."

"We weren't lying to you, Liam," says Louis, somehow keeping his voice low and steady, like talking to a spooked horse. He takes another step away from Harry. "Every time we said anything, whenever you and Niall thought we were joking, we weren't. We just weren't serious enough for you to believe us."

"We're sorry," Harry says because they are. They never meant to hurt anyone, let alone loyal and genuine Liam. "We're really, very sorry."

Liam nods like he wants to believe them but he's clearly still in shock, still trying to wrap his head around everything, trying to accept it. Louis lets him pace back and forth a bit, gives him some space, lets him work through it. He rejoins Harry's side, finds his fingers in the cold, autumn air, and tangles them together. A pair of furrowed, brown eyes spot the gesture and the rest of Liam's face falls.

"Did you not want me to know?" he asks sadly, all the anger draining from him with one pained question. "You know I don't have anything against gay people," he continues, causing Harry's heart to clench. "You two are my best friends. I'd never - I don't care about those things, about any of that. It doesn't bother me. Love is love. You two love each other and that's - I don't care if you're gay."

As the guilt doubles, triples, builds into this sticky, sizable lump in Harry's throat, Louis squeezes his hand and firmly shakes his head.

"No, Liam, it has nothing to do with us being gay," he says because it doesn't. This was never about that. "You already knew we were gay. Why would we think that mattered to you?"

"I don't know," Liam shrugs, arms rising and falling helplessly at his sides. "Why else would you keep it from me?"

He looks at them like a kicked puppy might, like he could go for a group hug, like he might need one in a matter of seconds.

"We thought it would be easier if we kept it between us," Harry tries his best to explain. "We were going to tell you eventually. We just didn't want to complicate things until they started getting serious."

"And they're not?" Liam asks, confused.

"Well," Louis starts, "I mean-"

Harry shakes his head. "Not really."

"Not really?" Liam repeats as if he's less likely to believe that over everything else they've told him. "What do you mean,  _not really?_  You've been together for six months," he points out. "You practically live at each other's houses, which,  _god,_  I can't believe I've only just noticed. But, like. You're in love with each other," he states like it's a fact, common knowledge that anyone with eyes should be able to see. "How can you not be serious when you're, like, the most dedicated, in-love boyfriends I've ever known?"

Absurdly, Harry lets out a bottled laugh. It just tumbles out of him, he doesn't know why, but he drops Louis' hand to slap his palm across his own mouth, eyes going wide with horror at his own nervous reaction.

"Sorry," he hurries to apologize. "I'm so sorry, it's just-" He glances sideways at Louis, sees the pink flush of his cheeks. "-We're not boyfriends. We're not-"

_In love_.

"Are you taking the piss again?" Liam asks, eyes darting between the two of them.

Harry doesn't know what to say. He stares at Liam for a good five seconds, mouth slightly parted, brain whirring to come up with the right words to explain what he's just insisted, but horrifically, his mind falls short. If they  _aren't_  boyfriends and they  _aren't_  in love, why should it feel so weird to deny it? Why does he feel so weird?

He turns to Louis, expecting some sort of help, some charitable aid in defending his previous statement, but Louis' gaze fixes resolutely on the grimey pavement and he doesn't say a word.

Harry swallows and turns back to Liam.

"I... No?" he tries with all the slow eloquence of a concrete block. "I mean, we're dating and that's fun, but we're not - It's not serious. Right, Louis?"

It takes Louis a moment to realize he's been addressed, and then he nods, this tight-lipped, robotic thing, barely looking up from his feet. "Right," he mumbles in agreement and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

He's uncomfortable, that much is certain. This entire thread of conversation is uncomfortable, twisting Harry's stomach up in knots, causing his palms to sweat. Oddly enough, he feels more anxious now than he did three minutes ago. What if Louis thinks he's in love with him? What if all of this falls apart because Louis' worried that he's getting too attached? Niall thinks he's in love. Liam thinks he's in love. Even Louis made that comment the other night about it -  _Let me know when you start to fall in love with me,_  he'd said as if he'd already known it was coming.

But Harry isn't in love with him.

"I'm not in love with him," he tells Liam because he's suddenly so terrified he's about to scare Louis off that he feels the need to declare it to the world. And because he's not. He swears he's not. Louis' going to bolt as soon as he thinks he is. He even asked for a warning.

"Okay," Liam says hesitantly, still not ready to believe it. He's not even looking at Harry anymore, eyes fixed on Louis, trying to read him. "So you're just dating," he repeats, seemingly coming to terms with it. "You're having fun. You're not serious at all. You're not even boyfriends."

"Yeah." Harry nods when Louis doesn't answer.

"Are you going to tell Niall?"

"I'm not sure he'll believe us," Harry says with a nervous laugh. He gently nudges Louis' elbow with his own to try and get some sign of life out of him, and he does, in the form of a thin smile that makes Louis' face look all wrong and doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Lou?" he asks, worried. His heart feels like it's outside of his chest.

"Let's not tell him tonight," Louis offers, his tone unrecognizable. "Let's wait a while longer. I need... I think we should wait."

"Are you feeling okay?" Harry asks, frowning.

"Did I make this weird?" Liam asks. "I didn't mean to ruin your night or anything. It's okay, you know? I forgive you for not telling me. I can go back inside and distract Niall if you need to talk?"

"Yeah, all right," Harry says at the same time Louis cuts in with, "No, we're fine."

And they are fine. They should be fine. Nothing has changed between them. Harry's insisted, made sure of it, denied any speculation about his supposed feelings. So why does it suddenly feel like they aren't fine at all?

"I think I might just go home, actually," Louis says once a beat of heavy silence has passed. "You two can go back inside and find Niall, make sure he's at least gotten that bloke's number for all the trouble he's been through. I'll just... I've had a long week," he says with a shrug. "I didn't even want to go out tonight."

"I didn't either," Harry reminds him. He tries reaching for Louis' arm, not to grab or even hold, just to touch, maybe. Just to try and reconnect where they seem to have fractured slightly, but Louis takes the smallest step back and shakes his head.

Liam notices. "Here's an idea," he says, "I'll go inside and let you two figure out what you want to do. You can text me if you decide to leave and I'll make up an excuse for Niall."

Before Louis can argue against it, Harry nods and says, "Yeah, okay."

Unexpectedly, he gets pulled into a tight hug, Liam's arms squeezing him half to death, dragging Louis into it too, until they're all pressed together in this bizarre embrace, too close for the way Harry's chest currently feels. He tries not to cuddle into Louis' side, fearing some sort of pull-back, but it's near impossible with the way Liam forces them together.

"You're crushing me," Louis wheezes, face turned away from both of theirs.

Liam eases up, ending the hug but keeping one hand on each of their shoulders. "I'm just happy you're actually together," he says all soppy and sweet. "Sorry I walked in on you," he apologizes, and then, "Niall is going to die when you tell him."

As soon as they're alone again, Louis pulls out his phone and calls a cab.

"Are we going back to yours?" Harry asks after he hangs up.

"I'm going back to mine," Louis says as he leads the way to the nearest street corner. "You can do whatever you want."

"I want to go home with you," Harry answers obviously. He can't remember the last time he slept alone in his own flat. It was weeks ago.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Louis tells him.

Harry's insides drop.

"Are you upset because of Liam?" he asks, not yet daring to prod at any of the other possibilities. "I know it - it sucks the way he found out, but he seems to have taken it pretty well. I don't think we have anything to worry about. I don't think he'll tell Niall or anyone at work."

"I'm not worried about him telling anyone," Louis sighs and pushes his fingers through his hair. "I was never worried about that."

"Then what's wrong?" Harry asks, because something is and he doesn't want to keep going at it like this. "Is it because of what Liam said?" he asks despite his reservations. "Is it because he thought we were boyfriends, that we're in love? I know everyone thinks we are, but-"

"You're not," Louis finishes for him as he comes to a stop at the corner. "Trust me, I know. You just made it abundantly clear that you weren't."

Harry pulls up beside him, lump forming in his throat. "Right," he says with a stiff nod. "I'm supposed to tell you when I am."

"Which you haven't," Louis agrees.

"Because I'm not."

"Noted," Louis says succinctly and pulls out his phone again to check the time.

"Are you upset with me?" Harry tries as that weird feeling finds its way into his chest again. He tries to shake it off but he doesn't know what it's about, doesn't know what he could have done wrong this time. It's just that Louis' never gotten genuinely upset with him before, not over anything important, not something like this. Harry doesn't know what it would be like. He doesn't know the signs.

Louis sighs, long and drawn out, irritated for sure. "Go back in the club, Harry. I can wait here by myself."

It's not an answer, which is probably as much of an answer as Harry needs.

"I - Okay," he says belatedly, his pulse speeding up, his face quickly turning red. He has no idea what he's done other than try to explain some of the finer details of their relationship to a friend who deserved the truth. Could Louis be  _that_  concerned about him falling in love that he's resorted to  _this?_  Does he somehow, insanely think that this is Harry's fault, that Liam found out because he couldn't keep his hands off him in the toilets? Harry doesn't want to pick a fight with him, but he doesn't understand.

Feeling completely spun around and out of his depth, he toes at a pebble with his left boot and refrains from apologizing for anything and everything he can think of. Louis wouldn't thank him for that.

"Can you at least text me when you get home?" he asks. "So I know you're safe?"

"I live five minutes away," Louis says, forever stubborn.

"Lou, please?"

"Yeah, alright," he sighs and allows Harry a small kiss, which must count for something, before shooing him back to the club.

Harry barely goes inside. He waits by the door until Louis gets in the cab, then he calls for one himself and goes back to his quiet, empty flat for the first time all week.

\---

His test results come back negative. He'd nearly forgotten to call the doctor after a night of dreadful sleep and a morning without coffee - he also forgot he was out of grinds, having not been home in several days to check the contents of his kitchen - and he tells Louis just as much in the lengthy, mopey message he leaves on his voicemail.

"So, if you'd like to, I don't know... come over and cuddle and maybe let me know how your test results went, please call me back," he rambles into the receiver as he stares at his ceiling from where he's lying flat on his back on his second-hand rug. "I'm sorry about last night," he adds because he feels like he should apologize for something. "I hope you're feeling better. We can talk about that too, if you'd like. I don't know. Call me when you get this. Miss you."

He hangs up before he can get too mushy, before he says anything that might push Louis even further into last night's mood. After all, though it might feel like forever since they last saw each other, it's really only been twelve hours. Harry's supposed to be stronger than this. He's not supposed to feel like half his heart is missing.

With no real incentive to move, he continues staring at his ceiling, counting the cobwebs, scratching lazily at his stomach, waiting for his phone to ring.

It doesn't. Not in the first hour, not in the second hour, not after he's cleaned and dusted his entire flat. Not after he's come up with three weeks' worth of lesson plans. Not after he's eaten his dinner alone.

So Louis is angry with him. For what, he hasn't the faintest idea. They'd established fairly well outside the club that he wasn't some pining, lovesick fool, that this thing they have can remain fun and easy and simple, no pressure, no hearts involved. That's what Louis wants, isn't it? They promised to talk about it if they ever started wanting something else, something more. They promised to be adults.

Except, when Harry climbs into bed that night after twenty-four hours without speaking to Louis, there's this empty space next to him that he doesn't really like, and this odd, niggling feeling in the cavernous depths of his chest that freaks him out enough that he lies awake for hours in the dark, trying to pin-point exactly what it means.

\---

His phone finally rings the following afternoon while he's out, shopping for food.

"Hello?" he answers on the second ring, right in the middle of the fruits and vegetables section.

"Hi," says Louis.

"Hi," Harry says again. "What's up?"

"Got your message," Louis tells him as Harry maneuvers his trolley out of some old lady's way and off to the side. "Didn't know you could leave a message that long. I always figured it would cut you off after a minute or two."

Embarrassed, Harry switches the phone to his other ear and starts riffling through the pyramid of mangoes to his right. "It wasn't that long, was it? Like maybe a little over a minute."

"Try five," Louis says and he doesn't sound amused. "Were you drinking? You just kept going on and on. I don't even remember half the things you said."

"It was one in the afternoon." Harry frowns. "Of course I wasn't drinking. Maybe  _you_  were if you can't remember what I said."

Louis ignores him. "What are you doing right now?"

"Food shopping," Harry says, dropping two mangoes in his trolley and continuing down the aisle. "You?"

"Casting my murder mystery," Louis answers as Harry stops to examine a crown of broccoli. "I got my results yesterday," Louis adds as if school dramas and sexual health are somehow related. "All negative. Nothing to worry about."

"Congrats," Harry says and pins the phone between his shoulder and ear to try and open a plastic bag. He stuffs the broccoli inside, twists the top and ties a knot to keep it sealed. "Maybe I can come over once I'm finished shopping and we can celebrate? I have some ideas for what we could do. We have the whole afternoon to ourselves. I can even make you dinner later if you'd like."

"What kind of ideas?" Louis asks, sounding almost bored.

Harry shrugs and checks around to make sure no one's paying him too much attention. "Sexy ideas?" he whispers, hoping Louis doesn't ask him to elaborate while he's out in public. They've tried the whole phone-sex thing before, and it was great, maybe a little awkward at first, but once they got the hang of it, they really let go. Harry doesn't want to let go in the middle of Waitrose.

"Sexy ideas?" Louis repeats, considering the proposition. Harry can almost picture him, arms crossed, eyebrows challenging, little smirk playing on his pretty mouth. And then. "I don't think so."

His rising pulse skips a beat.

"What?" he asks, dumbfounded. He can count on one hand the number of times Louis' said no to sex with him.

"No," Louis says.

"No?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Honestly, Harry, are you that fucking thick?"

Eyebrows bunching, stomach dropping, Harry pushes his trolley to a relatively empty corner of the store and pulls his phone from his ear to check the caller ID. Somehow, Louis' name still reads across the screen, a glorious photo of him gnawing on a hamburger at Niall's summer barbecue right there beneath it. Somehow, he hasn't been duped into a conversation with an impostor.

"What's going on?" he asks, frowning heavily as he brings the phone back to his ear. "I'm in the middle of the supermarket. I have no idea what you're on about. Is this still about the other night?"

"What do you think?" Louis asks as if he should already know.

Except, he doesn't. Harry doesn't have a clue what he's done to deserve this, what he could have possibly said to get Louis' knickers in such a twist.

"I don't know," he grumbles maybe a tad dramatically. "I said I was sorry when I called yesterday. I'm sorry Liam found out the way he did. I'm sorry we didn't tell Niall right away. I'm sorry Liam thought we were boyfriends. I don't mean to come across as so attached, I guess I just do. I mean, Liam's not the only one who's noticed, so if you want, I can tone it down, I can give you space, I can stop-"

_"Harry."_

Harry promptly shuts his mouth and attempts to wipe the sulky pout off his face. "What?"

"Shut up," Louis says. "Just stop talking. I don't care about any of that. I don't care if anyone thinks we're boyfriends."

"Okay," Harry says slowly, leaning his weight on the handle bar of the trolley.

For a long moment, there's nothing but silence between them, silence that stretches over several confused, thudding heartbeats, leaving Harry at a complete loss for words.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he admits quietly when he's sure Louis isn't going to break it first. This insane part of him almost lets out a dazed laugh, uncomfortable, flying blind, solo. He holds it in, swallows the uncertainty, pushes past it. "I'm sorry?" he tries again, though he's still not sure what for.

It's Louis who laughs instead, airy and dry, like he can't believe this is happening. "Oh Christ," he sighs right into the receiver, probably shaking his head wherever he is. "If you really need me to explain it to you, then I'm not sure it's even worth explaining. Just forget it, H. Forget I ever said anything."

"Do I really have a choice?" Harry asks, trying to keep up. "You're still not going to let me come over, are you?"

"So we can  _celebrate?"_  Louis steals his phrase from earlier. "No, I don't think so."

"And you're not going to tell me why?" Harry drums his fingers along the plastic trolley handle, only stopping when a middle-aged man with a beard shoots him a dirty look for making such noise.

Louis sighs again, this one more resigned than the last, doing absolutely nothing to ease the pressure in Harry's chest.

"Because," Louis says, "fucking bare is for people in serious relationships, Harry, and apparently we're not in one."

He hangs up before Harry can get another word in.

\---

_Apparently they aren't in one_.

Harry thinks about those few words a lot in the hours that follow, after Louis hangs up on him, after the check-out lady gives him the most judgmental look he's ever seen, all because of three dozen bananas and several boxes of condoms.

"I'm a sex-ed teacher," he tries to explain for her and everyone around them. "I'll let you guess what we're learning this week."

She doesn't bother guessing, doesn't even laugh let alone smile as she packs the bananas in two separate bags and takes Harry's cash from him.

Apparently he and Louis aren't in a serious relationship.

It's not a lie. They  _aren't_  in a serious relationship. They never mentioned being in one, never had that talk all responsible adults probably have before committing to each other. They never put a label on what they are. Every part of that sentence is true. It's the  _apparently_  that keeps his mind reeling into the early hours of the next morning, though, when there's no one to spoon him to sleep, no one to kiss the back of his neck, complain about the curls in his mouth. The  _apparently_  is the confusing bit.

Had Louis thought they were in a serious relationship? Had Harry accidentally agreed to it, to be his... well, his boyfriend without remembering it? Was it during some orgasm-induced blackout? While he was mumbling in his sleep? The last time he had too much to drink?

What the  _fuck?_  Why would Louis assume they'd moved past the dating phase and into something more?

The clock on Harry's phone reads 3:07 AM when he finally gives in and Googles  _'signs you're in a serious relationship'_ like some inexperienced teenager with a big, stupid crush. The results are a bunch of websites with romance tips and sex advice, all of them outrageously heterosexual, pandering to women and only women and constantly referring to boyfriends as  _your man._  If Harry ever called Louis  _his man_ , he'd surely get a kick in the nuts for it.

He skims through the first few lists, key phrases jumping out at him, some signs more relevant than others. They don't have time to take extravagant vacations together, none of their friends know they're dating apart from Liam, they haven't had to plan for the holidays yet. Irrelevant.

But they've met each other's families. Their clothes migrate between their two flats. They sleep together a lot of times without actually having sex. They can't keep their hands off each other. They're endlessly supportive. They have no problem seeing each other without makeup -

After reading that particular one for the fourth time, Harry lets out a strangled growl into his pillow, fists slamming into the mattress. He hates these fucking heteronormative websites.

Locking his phone and chucking it back onto Louis' side of the bed, he rolls onto his back and lets his mind wander over the one sign that seemed to stand out on every list.  _You know you're in a serious relationship when you've both said those three little words._  It all comes back to  _love._

Harry doesn't want to think about love. Thinking about love makes his lungs feel tight, makes his skin grow warm, makes his heart beat a little more fiercely. Thinking about love makes him think about blue eyes, Yorkshire tea, the soft press of lips to the tops of his shoulder blades, lips he hasn't kissed in two days too long. Thinking about love makes him think about Louis, and that's honestly very confusing.

_How do you know if you're in love?_  he wants to Google, but his phone's slipped between the headboard and the mattress, and really, he's not even sure he wants to know the answer.

The butterflies don't go away. He thinks about Louis until sleep finally overtakes him and the nagging feeling in his chest finally settles down, but the butterflies don't go away.

\---

Everything starts back up again as soon as he sees Louis.

Never,  _never_  in the year that he's known him, has Harry ever felt this much anxiety standing in the same room as Louis Tomlinson. Never. Not once. And it isn't even a good anxiety, not nerves tingling under his skin, making him giddy with a special sort of anticipation, a thrilling suspense. No, this is the kind of anxiety that pricks at his veins until they shrivel up and the blood stops flowing, drying out his fingers, his toes, his vital organs. It's the kind that has him dizzy with stupidity, that stops the air from getting to his brain, the kind where the only thing he hears is the siren going off in his ears, both blaring and simultaneously whispering  _he hates you, he hates you, Louis hates your silly guts._

They're in the breakroom. It's lunch time. Harry's leftover curry is in the communal microwave and Louis has stepped up to wait in line while Harry's gone to refill his water bottle.

The timer goes off and he has no choice but to stride over to retrieve his dish.

"Hi, Lou," he says tentatively like he knows he's in trouble, like he's walking on fine china.

Louis punches the microwave open for him and thrusts the hot tupperware into his hands. "Hi, Harry," he says bluntly before dropping his own bowl of noodles inside and smacking the door shut.

Harry's insides tighten so much his breakfast feels like it's being squeezed back up his esophagus.

"Can we talk?" he manages to force out, throat completely dry.

"In a room full of coworkers?" Louis barely raises an eyebrow. "Fat chance. Niall's right over there." He nods over Harry's shoulder. "Can't have him knowing our secret, can we?"

Harry would tell Niall everything, every  _fucking_  detail of their relationship, if it would get Louis to stop for a minute and just talk.

"I don't care about Niall," he insists, shaking his head. He sets his curry on the worktop. "Louis, please, I'm - I've been driving myself crazy these past two days trying to figure out what I did wrong. I barely slept last night. I can't. Not without you. I even tried Googling serious relationships and I know, I  _know_  we aren't in one because you have to be in love to be in one, and you don't love me, and I-"

"What on  _earth_  are you on about?" Louis interrupts Harry's word vomit, squinting at him in absolute bewilderment. "You seriously  _Googled_  relationship advice? You fucking twat. What is wrong with you?"

He swings a hand toward the crown of Harry's head, but Harry ducks and takes a quick step back.

"Louis - What-?"

"I've honestly never met someone less in tune with their emotions than you," he says, not bothering to keep his voice down. It garners some curious glances from the nearby tables but nobody really pays them any mind. The other teachers are used to it by now - the antics of  _HarryandLouis_. They barely bat an eyelash.

Harry does, though. He blinks at Louis for a quiet moment, his brow furrowing as he tries to make sense of what he just said. In tune with his emotions? As far as he knows, he's plenty in tune with his emotions. He does meditative yoga on the weekends. Nobody knows his mind and soul better than himself.

Louis jabs his thumb into the crease between Harry's eyebrows, smoothing out the wrinkle that's formed

"Don't hurt yourself trying to think, Styles," is all he says before he condescendingly pats Harry on the cheek and goes to remove his food from the microwave.

Harry's stomach swoops. "Louis, you're being a prick," he says as he grabs his curry and water bottle. "Whatever you're angry at me for, I didn't do it on purpose. I'd never intentionally hurt you and you know that."

Louis doesn't answer.

Harry pushes past him and spends his lunch period alone in his empty classroom, heart heavier than usual.

\---

Liam greets him a few hours later by chucking a handful of red and white fabric at his face.

"Heads up!" he warns, but it's too late, Harry's already spitting the cloth out of his mouth.

"What's this?" he asks glumly, shaking out the material. He notices Liam holding a matching bundle in his left hand, red and white, soft and shiny.

"Our dodgeball kits," Liam explains. "We're both on the red team but Tommo and Nialler got blue. Coach McDonald accidentally ordered you the wrong size shorts, by the way."

Harry separates the two articles of clothing in his hands, the first a thin white vest with his surname in bold red letters across the back and a soaring dodgeball across the front, the second a pair of tiny red shorts, big enough to cover his bum and maybe the first inch of his thigh, but not much else.

"I'm supposed to wear these?" He frowns, holding them up to his waist and stretching the elastic band. "Is this appropriate for a charity fundraiser? Are these made for women?"

Liam shrugs. "Why does it matter?" he asks. "You wear women's trousers all the time. If it's a question of preserving your bits, I'm sure your balls are used to it by now."

"Please don't talk about my balls," Harry says as he carefully folds the kit and tucks it into his rucksack.

"Right, only Louis' allowed to do that," Liam smirks and takes a seat in Harry's desk chair while he packs the remainder of his binders and books. "Speaking of which," he continues, voice lilting curiously, "now that I know you two are together, I haven't seen much proof of it today. Usually you're inseparable, but you didn't even sit with him at lunch."

"We're in a fight," Harry states quietly, calmly, pulling the drawstrings tight on his bag. "At least, I think we are. I don't know. Louis won't really talk to me and I don't know what I did wrong. He keeps implying that I'm missing something, like I'm stupid for not knowing what's going on, but I can't figure it out and he won't tell me."

He huffs out a frustrated, little breath, shoulders sagging, the weight of the past few days dragging him down. Liam eyes him sympathetically, and in that moment, everything becomes both easier and more dauntingly real. It's comforting, having someone to finally talk about his relationship with, but it's also terrifying. Talking about it acknowledges that it's actually happening, and Harry doesn't want to be in an Actual Fight with Louis.

"He really cares about you, Harry. I've known as much ever since you had the flu last year," Liam says, open and honest. "It was the first time he'd turned me down for a night out, just so he could cook you soup and play doctor."

Harry remembers that night, remembers cuddling up to Louis on the couch, his new best friend, the cute, hilarious drama teacher with the pretty mouth that he'd wanted to kiss. He hadn't kissed him that night, not for another hundred nights either, but eventually he did and it was the best mouth he ever had the pleasure of kissing. He might die if he never gets to kiss it again. The thought alone feels like a punch to the gut.

"Louis doesn't even know how to cook," he says rather lamely when he can't find any other words to say.

Liam shrugs as he rises from his chair. "No, he doesn't," he agrees, stopping to give Harry's shoulder a gentle squeeze on his way toward the door. "But we both know he'd serve you a six course meal if you'd only ask."

\---

The words stick with Harry.

He drives to work the next morning with a back seat full of bananas, condoms, and sunflowers, a man on a mission. It takes him three trips back and forth to lug them all inside, three trips with a lot of odd looks thrown his way, that still leave him with enough time to sneak off to Louis' classroom to deliver his bouquet before the first bell rings.

It's a bold move. He knows flowers probably won't fix anything, especially when he considers how stubborn Louis can be, but he saw them on his way home the day before and he thought they were beautiful. He thinks Louis deserves everything beautiful because Louis is beautiful. And Harry called him a prick. That's something he can knowingly apologize for.

He finds Louis already at his chalkboard, scrawling out the morning's notes in his succinct handwriting, mesmerizing in every sense of the word from the way he stretches to reach the top of the board, to the way he hums his soft little melody, earbuds lodged deep in his ears.

Harry allows himself a moment to just watch, to admire, to consume the simple sight of him with his guard down. It's his favorite kind of Louis. It's the same Louis he wakes up to in the mornings, the golden and sleepy, soft Louis. It's the Louis who slips under his arm while they're watching telly and traces looping circles around his chest. It's the Louis who laughs forever at his terrible jokes, who tries to convince him to adopt a puppy, who's so unabashedly himself that it makes Harry's heart ache when he retreats behind his brash walls, when he refuses to talk to him.

He gently knocks on the door and clears his throat.

"'Morning," he says a bit sheepishly when Louis turns around and tugs his earbuds out.

For a second, the world keeps miraculously spinning as if the past few days hadn't happened. Louis takes him in, soft eyes going from his face to his floral-print shirt and back up again, easy as ever, before he spots the sunflowers clutched behind Harry's back and he stops and glares instead.

"What are those?" he asks in a tone that would probably sound more threatening if it weren't laced with a hint of genuine curiosity.

Harry shrugs, his teeth digging into the bottom corner of his lip. "Erm," he says, chancing a step forward. "I saw these really nice flowers on my drive home yesterday and I bought them. For you."

"For me?" Louis repeats, raising an intrigued eyebrow.

Harry slowly approaches the front of his desk and nods.

"Yeah," he says, not daring to look up from his feet as he reveals the full bouquet. It looks a bit ridiculous now, in the simple setting of Louis' classroom - golden petals bursting from their dark faces, too big, too obtrusive, not the sort of thing Louis could hide in the corner of his room and not get asked about.

Confidence faltering, Harry sets them atop a stack of scripts and chances a glance at the boy before him before he looses his nerve. Louis lifts his eyes from the bouquet to stare back at him, sharp blue eyes regarding him with all the surprise and mild distaste of someone who's just seen a creature emerge from the nearest bog and drop sunflowers on his desk.

There's no reason to worry, Harry reminds himself as he starts to sink a little. He's been on plenty of dates before, bought plenty of pretty boys pretty flowers. He  _knows_  Louis. He knows him a thousand times better than probably all of those boys, and there's no reason to feel like he's been reduced to a fumbling schoolboy, ready to get his arse handed to him by his stunning, beautiful crush.

"This is stupid," he exhales, realizing how silly this must look. "Please don't say anything," he begs. "I know that look on your face and I know you want to say something mean, but please don't."

"I wasn't going to say anything," Louis denies with a little grin. He picks the flowers off his books and brings them closer to his face, smirking into them as he rotates the bouquet in his hands. "They're very beautiful, Harry," he says and manages to sound mostly sincere. "Thank you. What am I supposed to do if someone asks who they're from?"

"Tell them Mr. Styles gave them to you?" Harry suggests nervously.

Something soft and genuine falls across Louis' face. "Really?" he asks. "You won't mind the rumors? These teenagers are the gossipy sort, you know. They'll start whispering in the corridors and in just two hours half the school will think we're boyfriends."

He fixes Harry a loaded look like he expects some sort of objection, but Harry doesn't have any.

"That's fine," he says with a tiny shrug. "Let them think what they want. We aren't hiding because we're afraid of what people will say. We only agreed to do it because it made things fun. It made things-"

"Easy?" Louis supplies for him, and Harry nods.

"Easy, yeah" he agrees, his heart lurching as Louis peers down at his flowers again, eyelashes dark and absolutely breathtaking, fluttering over his summer-tanned skin. "Things aren't easy right now," he says as he watches Louis and swallows the urge to round the desk to kiss his cheekbones a thousand times each. He needs to say this first. "I don't know why Liam finding out made it that way, but I'm sorry it did and I'm sorry I called you a prick yesterday."

Louis places the flowers on his desk again. "Is that the real reason you brought me these?" he asks, not altogether accusing. "An apology?"

"I don't like fighting with you," Harry answers truthfully. "I don't. I hate it. These past few days have honestly been shit without you and I know it's only been, like, _four,_  but I miss you  _terribly_. Yes, they're an apology, but they're also beautiful and bright and bold, and they remind me of you because you're all those things and more. You're my favorite person, Louis. You're like a sun to me."

"I'm like a  _son_  to you?" Louis asks before Harry even has the chance to register what he's just said, and oh... fuck. "A son?" Louis repeats slowly. "What kind of bullshit poetry are you spouting now? Do you know how fucking weird that sounds?"

He frowns at Harry with his eyebrows furrowed so close together Harry can't tell where one ends and the other one starts, and just like that, his apology falls short. He doesn't even try to smooth Louis' creased brow out, too afraid Louis might punch him for his effort.

_"Sun,_  Louis. S-U-N," he spells instead, enunciating as best as he can, not that it matters now. "You're like the sun to me."

"God, you're such a loser," Louis sighs.

"Well, you're my favorite person," Harry hastily tells him. His words come out defensive as this odd sense of panic starts flowing through him. He'd been so close to fixing this. If he could  _just_  get Louis to understand, to know, to see how much he means to him, then the flowers, the honesty, this little quiet moment before the bell rings won't have been for nothing.

"You're like the sun to me," he says again, hurrying to explain himself in what little time he has left. "Louis, I know I can be a bit of an idiot but you're so, so, so incredibly important to me and I hate that we're fighting. I'm sorry for whatever I did, for disappointing you, for walking out during lunch yesterday, for letting you leave the club alone, for calling you my son, for everything I've ever done to upset you. But you make me brighter. You make me happy and warm and alive. You're my sun and my stars. You're my moon and the earth and all the flowers and sunflowers and roses and daisies and glitter and everything in between and I'm in love with you."

Oh, fuck.

"What?" Louis breathes, blinking at him with wide, confused eyes.

Harry shakes his head and takes a horrified step back.  _What_  is right. "I- I don't-"

He doesn't know why he just said that. Why did he just say that?

Louis follows him around his desk and Harry actually has to clutch his chest, his heart is beating so hard.

"You what?" Louis asks carefully.

"I don't know," Harry whispers, terrified. He can't breathe. He needs his inhaler. His stomach feels like it's about to drop out of his arse but his morning coffee is ready to come back out of his mouth and his head's gone all feverish. He might be in love with Louis. "I can't breathe," he wheezes, following another step back.

"Harry, relax. It's okay, I-"

"I don't know why I said that," Harry insists as Louis tries to approach him. He's not in love with him, he's not, he's not. If he says it enough, maybe it'll be true because he's  _not_. Louis doesn't want him to be. He wants to keep this casual. He wanted a  _warning_  for fuck's sake, and Harry's just- Oh,  _god_.

He trips over a desk as he backs away, stumbling, shaking, his face no doubt turning even redder as he straightens up and adjusts his shirt. "I'm not in love with you," he says as firmly as he can manage, which is to say not very firmly at all. "I don't know why I said that. I don't-"

"Harry."

Harry ignores him, holding up both hands and waving him away. "Louis, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. I'm leaving."

The surprise on Louis' face turns dark. "Harry, you can't just take it back," he argues, still following him to the door. "That's not how this works."

Harry knows. He  _knows_. But he's terrified that he's made everything a hundred times worse, and he can't lose Louis over this. He can't. He needs to think, needs to figure this out, needs to try and dig himself out of this hole before it caves in around him and he's buried alive along with the remnants of their dwindling relationship.

His heart gives a painful thud against his sternum.  _Fuck_ , he's in love with Louis. Everyone was right. He's so,  _so_  in love with him.

"I have to go," he insists, voice cracking straight down the middle as he backs away and through the door. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you like this. I know you didn't want things to get serious with us."

Louis comes to an abrupt stop on the other side, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're such an arse," he says, and he sounds like he means it this time. "Fuck. If you would just use your brain for two fucking seconds..."

The first bell rings and Harry jumps, every nerve in his body on edge.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes again, for everything, for ruining this. "I have to go."

He turns and runs before Louis has the chance to stop him.

\---

So he's in love with Louis. The further the day progresses, the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he  _has_  been, irrevocably and unequivocally so for the better part of the past few months. He has no idea what destructive part of himself decided it was a good idea to suppress it, to give those butterflies another meaning, to ignore the blatant urge to shout it from the rooftops every time Louis so much as breathed near him, but yeah. The feeling is there. He is definitely in love.

And Louis is still angry. Even more so than he'd been that morning, because now Harry's said it out loud and while he tried to take it back, Louis had been right. He can't rewind and suck the words back into his mouth, and the sheer panic that that leaves inside of him, growing and festering, radiating straight out of his bones for the entirety of the day, almost has him running to the toilets as soon as the final bell goes off, his stomach just about ready to empty itself.

He doesn't run this time, though. Instead, he collects his demonstration bananas with the same shaky, sweaty hands that struggled to open multiple condoms for multiple classes, and sets them back in their bags to bring home. He feels a bit ill, like he's had the chills and a fever all day, all at the same time, enough to distract him from the fact that he tore several condoms open with his teeth in front of his teenage students, something he definitely should not have done.

"Fuck," he breathes, low and slow and like the weight of the universe is tenderly crushing him as he bangs his head against his chalkboard.

He's ruined basically everything. He fell in love and he panicked and now Louis thinks he's an arse.

Dragging his feet, he bundles up the rest of his bananas and starts for his car, hoping beyond hope that Louis is busy with his first drama rehearsal instead of waiting to beat him up in the lot.

"Need help carrying those?"

Harry nearly drops the heavier bag but Niall catches it, prying it out from under his arm and balancing it against his hip.

"Fuck, Niall," Harry sighs and clutches his chest as Niall peers inside his bag.

"Mate," he says, wrinkling his nose. "Got enough bananas? I always assumed you'd be into some kinky shit, but this is just weird."

"They were for class," Harry groans and continues down the corridor. "I used them for the condom demonstrations and now I have to bake a thousand banana muffins for Friday's bake sale."

"Is that healthy?" Niall asks.

Harry shrugs. "As long as the peel's not broken, I don't see why not? What's the difference between a bunch of hands touching them at the supermarket and some cheap latex?"

"Nothing, I suppose," Niall agrees, "as long as no one has a latex allergy." And then, "You okay?"

Feeling a little sorry for himself, Harry chooses not to lie this time. "Not particularly, no," he admits.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Niall offers. He checks the corridor around them for after-school stragglers. "Does this have anything to do with you not being at lunch and Louis being a miserable twat?"

"How do you know when you're in love?" Harry asks without answering his question.

Niall grins, shouldering the back door open and allowing Harry to step into the lot. "Who are you in love with?"

"No one, I'm just asking."

"For a friend?" Niall wiggles his eyebrows.

"Yeah, sure," Harry shrugs and leads them toward his beat-up, second-hand sedan, all the way in the back corner. It comes in handy for days like these, for transporting bananas and sunflowers, but he does miss his bike.

"Well, Harold, I've only been in love twice," Niall starts, "and all I can remember is that it was probably the only time in my life I'd ever turned down a beer and a Derby game to spend time with a girl. That's how I knew it had to be something special."

As someone who doesn't religiously watch football, Harry can't quite relate.

"What if it makes you feel a bit ill?" he asks because his stomach still hasn't settled and his head is a mess.

"That depends on why it's making you feel that way," Niall answers wisely.

Harry hugs his bag to his chest. "The other guy doesn't want my friend to fall in love with him," he tries to explain. "My friend thinks the other guy is angry with him because of it and my friend doesn't know how to make it better."

"We're talking about you and Louis here, right?" Niall asks, frowning a little and looking very confused. "Because Louis' been in love with you for months, Harry. If anything, he's  _waiting_  for you to fall in love with him so he can stop feeling so one-sided about it all. He  _wants_  you to be in love with him. He's probably pissed that you haven't admitted it yet."

Harry slows to a stop in the middle of two rows of cars, all of his thoughts stumbling with him. "What?" he asks, brow furrowing as he tries to wrap his head around this. "Where did you get all that from? Did Louis tell you that?"

Has Niall been in on their relationship for the past however many months? Is Harry's entire life a lie?

"Louis hasn't told me anything," Niall reassures him with an odd look. "I just know that's how he feels. Just like I knew you were in love with him weeks ago, like I knew you two should have hooked up or gone on a date or done  _something_  a month after you met. No one ever listens to me," he says bitterly. "Look at where that's gotten you."

Stunned, Harry almost takes a seat right there in the middle of the car park to have a good, hard think about everything. Now might be a great time to tell Niall he and Louis have actually been dating for half a year, but he can't, not without Louis beside him.

"You think Louis' in love with me?" he asks, every breath feeling forced, his lungs feeling weak. So much has happened in the past eight hours; he's having trouble keeping up.

"I think both of you love each other a hell of a lot more than either of you realize," says Niall.

It's a lot to process. Somehow, Harry feels even closer to emptying his stomach than he has all day, like his entire world's been upended and the sudden swing of it, the reversed gravitational forces have had the same effect on his body as a loop-de-loop on a roller coaster. Physics is Niall's thing. Maybe Niall can come home with him and help him bake muffins and try to explain potential energy and all that stuff a bit further. Play with his curls too.

Except Harry needs to talk to Louis. He needs to find him and apologize and set the record straight because he  _does_  love him. He loves him and he's been a complete idiot about it this whole time. Blind and witless and an utter  _fool_. His heart and his brain haven't been communicating properly - they've been keeping secrets from him for at least a month, cutting off all signals between each other and making him behave like... well. Like an arse.

"I haven't had motion sickness this bad since you forced me onto that ride at last year's carnival," Harry say as he hugs the bananas tighter and closes his eyes, his head bowed nearly into the bag.

"You're standing still, mate," Niall reminds him but rubs his back all the same.

"I need to sit down," Harry decides.

"You need to talk to Louis," Niall says and grabs his bicep, hauling him up before he can even make it to the ground.

Harry nods shakily. "Okay," he agrees. "I might have to throw up first." He digs his keys from his back pocket and clicks the remote. Somewhere in the lot, his car unlocks. Probably. "I think I'm near that lamp post," he says, nodding vaguely a few rows down. He can't believe this is happening.

Carefully, Niall pries the bag from his arms. "Go get him," he says, shaking his head with mild exasperation. "You fuckin' wanker."

Harry's hands are trembling too hard to flip him off, but he imagines himself doing so as he walks away and that must count for something.

He needs to find Louis. Wonderful, sweet, brilliant Louis. Louis who, according to Niall, has been waiting for him for weeks to get his act together and realize how he feels, the same Louis that Harry repeatedly insisted he wasn't in love with, the one he blurted his heart out to that morning before he panicked and took it all back.

God, Harry's been so  _stupid_. Not only about his own feelings, but about Louis' too. How hadn't he noticed that Louis was in love with him as well? How had he mistaken everything - the slip-up about making love, the  _let me know when you start to fall for me,_  the STI tests, his reaction to Liam finding out - how had he twisted it all so far around that he'd ended up digging his own grave by fucking  _trying to reassure_  Louis that he hadn't developed any feelings for him at all? No wonder Louis hasn't properly spoken to him since that night at the club. No wonder everything's gone to shit in a matter of days.

They were basically in a  _serious relationship_  and Harry made it his job to prove to Louis otherwise.

With his stomach tied up in guilty, tangled knots, he travels in a bit of a daze around the building to try and find Louis before he disappears and another day goes by without resolving this. He tries his classroom first, but the door is locked and the lights are off, his sunflowers are missing and his bag of scripts is gone. He's probably already at the stage, preparing for his first drama rehearsal, which makes Harry feel even worse for not wishing him good luck and telling him to  _break a leg_.

He ends up finding him in the theater just as he's handing out scripts to all of his students, the small ensemble sat on the edge of the stage with their director before them. He doesn't mean to make such an obvious entrance, but the light from the corridor filters in from the back of the theater and the door creaks wildly, obnoxiously, and soon enough, sixteen pairs of eyes fall upon him with amused curiosity.

Louis is the last to turn around, and with an entire theater between them, he's too far away for Harry to gauge his expression. If he had to guess, though, he'd say it was  _unhappy._

The wind slowly dies from his sails.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes from the back of the theater, chest feeling tight. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I just thought-"

"We're in the middle of a rehearsal, Mr. Styles," Louis cuts him off, sounding very much annoyed. The teenagers behind him don't seem bothered in the slightest, but Harry shuts his mouth at once. "Was there something you needed or can it wait?

Harry swallows thickly. This isn't how he expected this to go. In the seven minutes it took him to get here, he never imagined approaching Louis with an audience. "Um. I just... wanted to talk to you," he says slowly. "About something. It's not important. I mean. It is, but, I don't-"

"Mr. Styles?" Louis gives him a pointed look.  _Get on with it,_  it says.

Harry can't do this in front of everyone. He shakes his head and starts walking backwards, pleading with Louis with just his eyes. He really is so in love with him; no one else could make him sweat like this, make his heart ache so much just by being cross with him.

His back hits the door and he hears Louis let out a heavy sigh.

"Sorry, guys," he says, turning to his cast. "Just give me two minutes. I'll be right back."

He strides up the rows of ancient theater seats and forces Harry backwards through the door behind him, letting it squeak shut against the wave of gossipy whispers that fill the theater almost at once. He grabs Harry's forearm and tugs him along the corridor, doesn't stop until they're in front of the gymnasium doors, until he's checked that they're alone, then he drops Harry's arm and glares at him.

"This better be fucking good, Styles," he snaps frustrated. "After the shit you pulled this morning, I-"

"Are you in love with me?" Harry asks before he loses his nerve.

Louis stares at him. A feverish chill runs down Harry's spine and he tries his best to ignore it.

"I'm not going to answer that," Louis says, shaking his head. "Not when you barely know what your own answer would be."

"And if I do?" Harry asks, because he does, now, finally, after not knowing for  _weeks._

"If you do," Louis says with a heavy sigh, "then is now really the best time to tell me? I'm in the middle of my first rehearsal, Harry. I'll be out in an hour. We can talk or do whatever you want then, but now isn't-"

"I love you," Harry cuts him off, words tumbling out of his mouth as he decides now is the  _only_  time. "I love you and I'm in love with you, and I'm sorry I was so stupid about everything, but I didn't know what I was feeling about you until today."

He stares straight into Louis' eyes as he says it, and in silence that follows after the last syllable falls from his tongue, his heart beats so hard he knows Louis can hear every thud. The silence stretches. It twists and suffocates and wraps around them so tightly Harry's afraid he might pass out, until Louis finally swallows it and saves them both.

"You love me?" he repeats, voice lowered, slow with what Harry can only hope is anything but anger.

He nods, lips pressed together, fingers dying to reach out and link with Louis' own.

"I love you," he says with all the confidence he has left. "And I'm sorry it took me so long to realize it."

Louis huffs out a disbelieving breath.

"Try several fucking months too long," he says, and then he kisses Harry, right on the mouth, right in the middle of the bloody corridor.

In an instant, Harry's hands are on his hips, drawing him closer, anchoring himself to the one person capable of keeping him tethered to the earth in this very moment. He could probably cry if he wanted to. He could probably sprout wings and fly away, take Louis into the clouds with him and never need anything else in his life, just this. He kisses Louis with quiet, intense adoration, teases his mouth open and just manages to swipe over his tongue before he starts smiling too much and Louis starts getting cheeky with his hands near his bum and they need to stop.

"I love you," Louis says, like it's the easiest thing in the world for him. It probably is. "I've been in love with you since you took me to that Stones concert. I've been in love with you since we drove all the way to Edinburgh just to see the pandas. I've been in love with you for  _months_ , Harry, and all I wanted was for you to catch up, to feel the same way I felt about you, and you - you  _laughed_  when Liam thought we were boyfriends. You made it sound like the idea of us being in love was absurd, and that... that  _hurt_."

"I'm sorry," Harry says again, because he is, genuinely very, very sorry. "I never meant to hurt you, I just. Didn't know. I didn't know that's how you felt about me. Christ, I thought - I thought you were worried I was falling for you. I thought you didn't want me to."

"What?" Louis asks, face pinching in confusion. "Why would you think that?"

_"Tell me when you start to fall in love with me?"_  Harry quotes him, doing a poor imitation of his Yorkshire accent.

"I do  _not_  sound like that."

"I'm still working on it," Harry promises. "But really. What was I supposed to think when you said that? Why else would you want to know if not so you could ditch me as soon as you found out?"

"Maybe so I could tell you, like, yeah, me too, I feel the same way?" Louis scoffs and reaches out to pinch Harry's side.

Harry squawks in surprise and goes to swat his hand away, but thinks better of it and grabs his wrist instead. He links their fingers together.

"Alright," he says, smile creeping over his face again. "Well, I'm telling you now. I've fallen in love with you."

"Yeah, me too," Louis says, squeezing his fingers. "It's mutual, you tosspot." He kisses Harry once more, just a quick peck. "I have to go back to rehearsal."

He glances over Harry's shoulder, down the corridor toward the theater doors. They both frown a bit.

"Come over after?" Harry says, taking his other hand and swinging their arms like strands of spaghetti. "You can help me bake muffins and we can talk some more?"

Louis bites his lip and nods. "I'd like that," he says with a soft smile.

Harry gives his hands a gentle tug and pulls him in for a long hug. Louis goes easily, melting into his arms, tucking his face into the crook of Harry's neck. Harry kisses the side of his head, rocks them from side to side, thinks about never letting go, never having to be apart from Louis again. It's a nice thought. Improbable, but nice. As long as he doesn't have to go through another week like this ever again, he should be fine.

"Louis?" he asks, dropping two more kisses to Louis hair.

"Yeah?"

"Will you be my boyfriend?"

Louis doesn't bother picking his head up, just nuzzles further into Harry's neck, lips brushing the smooth skin near his shoulder.

"I'd like that," he says.

\---

"You've got banana on your cheek."

A tongue darts out to lick it from Harry's face before he even registers what's been said. He scrunches up his nose, nudges it against the closest part of Louis he can find, and goes to push onto his forearms from his position atop his very naked, very recently acquired boyfriend.

The cock still buried inside him shifts.

His entire body reacts to it, clenching, twitching, freezing in his attempts to sit up in Louis' lap so as to not flatten him to the kitchen floor, but Louis smoothes his hands down his sides and cranes his neck to kiss the little whimpers out of his mouth as they rise, and,  _eventually,_  they manage an upright position.

"You alright?" Louis asks, tucking a strand of hair back into Harry's bun.

Harry nods, every inch of his skin tingling and warm, the closest thing to  _glowing_  he's ever felt. "Banana on my cheek, flour in my hair, come in my arse," he muses, words coming out rough and gravelly. "I'm a mess," he laughs and coughs into his elbow to clear his throat. "I like it, though. Feels good."

"Feels good for me, too," Louis smirks and rocks upward, ever so slightly.

Harry groans, arms tightening around Louis' back and holding them steady. "Keep going like that and I'm going to get hard again," he breathes out, less of a warning and more of an  _it's up to you but don't start what you can't finish_.

He probably could go again in a few minutes if Louis felt like giving his cock some attention. He could probably spend the rest of the night taking Louis in various ways, in various positions, various corners of his flat - god knows they made a mess of the kitchen already and Louis' only been here for about forty minutes - but they have actual things they need to do now that they've gotten sex out of their systems. Mostly out, anyway. There  _is_  still a cock in his arse.

"I don't want to move," he pouts, even though his thighs are starting to ache and his skin has a layer of sweat, come, and baking ingredients stuck to it. They should have moved this to the bedroom as soon as it had started, at  _least_  the couch if they had any decency at all, but how was he supposed to resist Louis' hands on him after not having them there for nearly a week? How was he supposed to say  _no, let's wait till the baking's over,_  when Louis had feigned such innocence as he'd asked  _how do you whisk?_

Louis bloody knows how to whisk.

He also knows how to fuck like a true champion. Definitely Harry's favorite boyfriend of all time.

"Gonna have to get up eventually, love," Louis laughs and kisses the side of Harry's face, his nose, his tired, pouty mouth. "I'll slip out sooner or later if you don't start to do something about it."

"Want to keep you inside me forever," Harry sighs, entire body heaving with it.

Louis squeezes his hips, the soft parts where his legs start to straddle his thighs. "You're incredible, you know that?" he says with a quiet, breathy laugh. "You  _feel_  incredible. Like, you always do, but when I feel all of you like this, when it's just me that's inside you, it's..."

"I know," Harry nods, teeth grazing his bottom lip, cheeks flushed as he ducks his head into Louis' shoulder. "I know. It's a lot."

"Yeah," Louis softly agrees, playing with the damp curls at the back of his neck. "It's a lot more intense."

"More intimate," Harry offers.

"I almost came as soon as I was inside you." Louis snorts. He lowers his head until Harry feels a pair of lips try to meet his own, and they spend another quiet moment kissing amongst the kitchen cabinets, just the soft sounds of their breathing filling the silence.

"Love you," Harry murmurs the moment they stop. It's still a bit terrifying to say considering he's only been aware of it for about ten hours, but it's exhilarating too, gets his heart going in all the best ways.

Louis shifts beneath him as he starts to slip out, his cock having finally gone soft in the middle of everything. "I like hearing you say that," he says, nipping at Harry's bottom lip when he sees Harry pouting at the sudden emptiness.

He can feel Louis' come dripping out of him. It's not the most comfortable feeling in the world, but it's a nice reminder of what they just did. A nice,  _dirty_  reminder.

"Say it back," he says, reaching up to pull the elastic from around his hair and let a wave of curls fall to one side of his face. He drops his hands in loose fists to Louis' chest

"Say what?" Louis smirks, leaning backwards and resting his weight on his hands.

Harry throws a gentle punch at his shoulder. "Louis."

"Harold."

"Say it." Harry frowns, fingers spreading over Louis' chest.

Louis takes his hands and kisses each of his fingertips, biting his thumbs in turn.

"I love you," he says with a little grin. "I have for quite some time."

Harry's stomach swoops. First in a good way, then in a guilty way. "We should talk about that."

"And we will," Louis agrees, draping Harry's arms around his shoulders. "But first we should clean ourselves off and finish baking your muffins - and no, that's not a euphemism."

Harry's mouth curls up in amusement, and with an encouraging nod from Louis, he starts to clamber off of him, legs a little wobbly, the ache in his thighs something he'll be feeling for at least a day or two. He doesn't mind.

"I should text Niall," he says, helping Louis off his arse, the two of them looking rather debauched in the once pristine kitchen.

Louis dusts a bit of flour from his cheek, pushes his sweaty fringe to the side. "Why?"

"He sort of helped me realize you might have feelings for me," Harry explains with a shrug.  _"Love_  feelings."

"I do have  _love_  feelings for you, but I thought we had a ban on talking about Niall during sex." Louis starts to scowl, but Harry just ignores him and wraps him up in a sticky hug.

"This isn't during sex," he points out. "This is after sex."

"Any time we're naked and our dicks are touching, I consider it sex," Louis says and when Harry opens his mouth to protest, he rolls his eyes. "I don't care if we're not  _hard_ anymore, Harold. Get off me. We're taking a shower."

"Hang on," Harry says and lets go of Louis just to grab his phone off the worktop. He needs to send Niall  _something_ , a little confirmation that everything went according to plan. They can tell him the truth another time, when they're face to face, in an empty room with nothing for Niall to hurl at them. A smiley little selfie should suffice for now, though.

"Say  _'boyfriends,'"_  Harry sing-songs, hooking his chin over Louis shoulder and angling the camera so it's just their faces and not their obviously naked bodies.

"We look like we've just had sex," Louis comments as Harry plants a kiss on his cheek.

He snaps the picture, and yeah, they've clearly just fucked, but he likes it, they look fucking  _fit_  together. Maybe he won't send it to Niall. Maybe he'll just save it as his lock screen now that he doesn't have to worry who sees it.

"Take one of my arse and send him that instead." Louis grins, pinching Harry in the ribs.

Rolling his eyes in the fondest way possible, Harry sets his phone down, scoops Louis up bridal-style, and carries him off to the shower.

\---

"Hiya."

"Hi, Curly."

"So," Harry starts as he passes Louis his cup of tea and settles into the corner of the couch opposite him later that same night. "Remember a few months ago, when we agreed we'd talk about things if they started getting serious? We said if we ever wanted to go further than dating, we'd say something?" He pulls his bare feet onto the cushions and looks over at Louis, tucked under his favorite blanket, hood of his old uni zip-up pulled over his wet hair. "What happened?" Harry asks. "Why didn't you say something?"

He doesn't mean to put Louis on the spot, it's just, they said they were going to talk about everything and he knows they both have a few questions.

"I don't know," Louis says, but his tone makes it sound otherwise. "I think I was already starting to feel more for you at the time than I was letting on, and it just felt really weird to tell you then. Like, I wasn't sure if you were on the same page as me yet. I didn't want to rush things for you."

"So you waited?" Harry asks, blowing cool air over his mug before chancing a sip. It burns his tongue. Of course it does. He'll never learn.

"I waited." Louis nods. "I watched for the signs. I didn't push you along. I didn't want you to fall for me just because you thought you had to," he says as he clutches his mug to his chest for warmth. "I  _thought_  I noticed you getting there when school started again and Niall kept dropping hints, but I wasn't sure. I mean, you almost had me genuinely convinced about two weeks ago with the thing with the stars and the drama rehearsals and always just  _being there_  when I needed you, but then..." He rolls his eyes as if to say  _you know what happened next_  and shrugs.

"Then I ruined it at the club," Harry sighs, hating himself just a little for all the drama he'd caused. He never meant to throw their relationship for such a loop. He never meant to take the long, hard road to get to this point. If Louis had asked him to be his boyfriend, of course he'd have said yes. The confusion and tension had been both unnecessary and excessive.

Louis gives him a wry, little smile. "Yeah," he says and kicks a foot out to knock his knee. "Thanks for that, love."

"I honestly feel so stupid that I didn't know," Harry admits with a low laugh. He takes Louis' foot and pulls it into his lap, quietly shaking his head. "I thought, like - I had it so twisted around in my head - I thought-"

"You thought I didn't want you falling for me," Louis finishes, wiggling his toes. "I know. We've discussed this already."

"Yeah, but you have to understand, Lou," Harry says, "I'd have never said those things about us - I wouldn't have run away this morning or laughed when Liam said the boyfriend thing if I hadn't been so petrified of you not wanting it. I honestly thought I was going to lose you if you ever thought I was in love with you."

"Maybe that's why you didn't  _realize_  you were in love with me," Louis suggests, which, yeah, that actually makes sense.

"Like I subconsciously suppressed my feelings because I was afraid?" Harry digs his thumb into the sole of Louis' foot, ready to give him a massage, but Louis pulls his foot back.

"I feel like a psychologist here," Louis says and sets his mug on the coffee table. "I think I might have pressured you into suppressing everything," he speculates, cringing slightly. "I shouldn't have ditched you at the club. I shouldn't have ignored you these past few days. I think only made it worse."

"Well, you certainly didn't make it better." Harry snorts. He sets his own mug down and tugs at Louis' arm until Louis collapses against his side.

"I'm sorry," Louis says, curling into his chest. "I was just upset that you hadn't realized how you felt, and then I was afraid I'd misread everything and you actually  _didn't_  feel the same at all."

Harry kisses the top of his head. "We've been awfully silly about everything, haven't we?"

"We have," Louis agrees and pulls Harry's blanket over the two of them. "I missed you. Do you know what it's like sleeping without a human space-heater snoring in your ear all night?"

"Peaceful?" Harry offers with a grin. He shifts around a bit until Louis' elbow isn't jabbing him in the ribs anymore, and finds himself peering down at his favorite person, his sunshine, starlight boy, his entire universe embodied in one incredible human with unbelievable bone structure and a mouth that tastes and talks like sin.

Louis tilts his head back, eyelids fluttering as he meets Harry's steady gaze.

"No," he says with a sad smile. "It was lonely."

He reaches up and curls his fingers through the ends of Harry's hair, pulls until Harry obliges and meets him halfway for a warm, easy kiss. His lips are soft and he keeps it rather simple, but it still makes Harry's heart melt in its deep cavity within his chest.

"It was lonely for me, too," he murmurs and snuggles right up against Louis, eliminating any and all space between them. He's feeling needy tonight, extra clingy.

"Let's not fight like that again," Louis decides, hands going up the back of Harry's jumper. "I don't like it. It's not for us."

"Deal," Harry agrees, "but just so you know, I'm going to kick your arse in dodgeball on Friday."

"In your fucking dreams, Styles." Louis laughs, entire body shaking with it. "You and Payno are going  _down._  I'll have you know I was Doncaster's finest youth dodgeball player back in sixth form."

"Like hell you were." Harry rolls his eyes and butts their foreheads together. "I bet you can't even remember the last time you played dodgeball. You probably skived off every P.E. class whenever it was anything but football."

_"Never,"_ Louis insists like Harry's somehow mortally offended him. "P.E. was my best subject, Harold. I only skived off for badminton, and _nobody_  plays badminton."

"I did," Harry admits with a lopsided grin. "Was quite good, actually."

"Of course you were," Louis sighs and runs a nail down Harry's entire spine. "My weirdo, alien boyfriend, good at badminton. You and Liam are going to lose. You'll be kissing my entire team's feet come Friday night."

"Let's make a bet out of it," Harry challenges. He's not going to lose, and it'll be great to get something out of Louis when he's proven right.

"Alright." Louis nods against his head. "If I win - and I  _will_  - you have to come clean to Niall about everything all on your own, without me there to stop him from beating your skinny arse senseless. You have to give him all of it - how long we've been dating, how we first got together. Everything in detail. The full story."

"I can do that," Harry agrees easily. He's not afraid of Niall and he's  _just_  shameless enough to not care about spreading the details of his sex life. He'll do it - if he _has to_. He'll give Niall everything from the words he muttered as he dragged Louis away from his own after-party last spring to the way Louis' cock tasted on his tongue fifteen minutes later. "And if I win," he says, because he has no doubt that he will, "you have to drive home with me on the back of my bike."

Louis groans, his nails digging into Harry's shoulder blades.  _"Arse,"_  is all he says.

Harry lets out a wicked cackle, unable to help the crazy grin from spreading all the way across his face.

"A deal's a deal, Lou," he laughs, high off the feeling in his chest. "What do you say?"

Louis pulls their heads apart just enough so that Harry can see the skepticism in his eyes. "You're still going to lose," he says carefully, "but yeah, it's a deal."

\---

In order to keep Harry's loser's punishment worth it, they don't tell anyone they've made it official just yet. Harry doesn't send Niall the thank-you text, and he and Louis go about the next two days as if nothing's changed, as if they're still on the outs with each other. It's painful, now that all Harry wants to do is be ridiculously, obnoxiously public about their relationship, at least in front of their friends. But he gets through it.

"I thought you were going to talk to Louis," Niall accuses when he finds Harry alone in the gym after school on Thursday.

"I did," Harry says, dribbling a practice dodgeball up to the center of the court before kicking it up into his hands, ready for Niall to lambast him. "We're boyfriends now. We had celebratory sex and everything."

It had been Louis' idea to keep deadpanning the truth if Niall happened to ask. This way, Niall won't be able to accuse them of lying, and Harry wouldn't have to test out his recently cultivated acting skills. By recently, he means acquired last night. After they'd talked and gotten off again like teenagers snogging and dry humping on the couch, Louis had shoved a copy of King Lear into his hands and forced him to read lines.

There's a huge difference between lying to your best friend and pretending you're some old, rubbish king. Harry hasn't reached that point just yet.

"If you're boyfriends, I'll do a strip tease at the charity tournament tomorrow," Niall scoffs, slapping the ball from Harry's hands and chucking it straight at his face.

Harry dodges it from three feet away. He wasn't lying about that either. He's going to fucking win this thing.

"The children don't want to see that, Nialler," he tuts as he chases after the ball. "The parents will have you sacked for being a pervert. Keep your kit on."

"I'm serious," Niall says, following him. "Quit fucking with me. If you think you're in love with him, tell him already. I want to have grandkids before I die."

"We're not your children." Harry throws the ball at him, hits him square in the chest. "We're not your baby-making machines. Who said we even want kids?"

"You're sure acting like my children," Niall comments, rubbing his sternum. "And trust me, once you  _are_  together, you'll be inseparable. Engaged in a year, married in two, parents in three or four. Mark my words."

"Got it all figured out for us?" Harry asks with a raised eyebrow because it's easier than focusing on that buzzing feeling inside of him, the fact that he knows Niall's right. He wants Louis to be his happily-ever-after, his forever. He wants to have all of that with him - the marriage, the babies, the future. He's just not ready to think that far ahead so soon.

"I'll go down in history as the greatest match-maker of all time," Niall insists.

"You're a bit mental, you know that?"

Harry pops the ball up with his toe and tucks it under his arm. Niall just shrugs like he's heard it all before.

"I just don't like seeing true love go to waste," he says and, with a final salute, leaves Harry to his target practice against the gymnasium walls.

Harry is going to get his arse handed to him if he loses this tournament. With the amount of pain and suffering Niall has gone through on his and Louis' behalf - he's going to need Louis by his side, guilty in equal measure, when they finally come clean. He lunges, throws the ball at the wall from halfway across the court, hits the center of the giant, red X he plastered to it, and knows he'll be fine.

\---

He takes his bike to work the following morning, banana muffins in the boot of Louis' car alongside the spare helmet he's only ever made use of with Gemma. He makes it through the day without any further needling from Niall, without Liam seeking him out and demanding to know why he and Louis haven't fixed things yet, and he even manages a sneaky, private moment with Louis behind the stage curtains once his rehearsal lets out.

They don't even do anything. There's a kiss hello and a kiss because Harry can't help it, but mostly they spend the hour between Murder in the A.M. practice and the time they're supposed to meet in the locker rooms just holding hands, blinking up at the stage lights, sweetly antagonizing each other over whose team is going to win.

"I have a secret weapon, though," Harry taunts, reaching back for his rucksack, currently being used as his pillow.

Louis follows him with his eyes, watches as Harry sits up and pulls his kit from the bag.

"Not much of a secret if you're already giving it away," he comments, but his smile is fond, his laugh warm and lilting like the flame of a candle.

Harry grins and shakes out his tiny red shorts. He gets on his knees, holds them up to his waist.

"Distraction tactics," he says proudly at the same time Louis wolf-whistles.

"Is this a dodgeball tourney or the Victoria's Secret fashion show?" he teases, eyeing the place where the material ends on his thigh. "I've seen more coverage from lingerie than you'll have with those."

"Shut up," Harry huffs with a traitorous little giggle. "You've never even watched a Victoria's Secret fashion show. You have no interest in that sort of thing."

"Doesn't mean I don't know what they wear," Louis argues and raises his eyebrows pointedly. "Be careful not to bend over or you'll have your bum on display for anyone behind you. Remember, this is a family event."

"Perfect." Harry smirks. "Mums love me. Dads too."

"Mr. Styles - the absolute  _dream_ ," Louis swoons, batting his eyelashes. "Go on, then. Put them on. Give us a show."

Harry glances around their hidden corner of the stage, tucked behind two curtains, sectioned off by a set of fake stairs. "What, right here? Now?"

"I reckon it's only fair that I get a sneak preview." Louis shrugs. "Boyfriend privilege, and all."

He reaches out to tug at Harry's belt and Harry surprisingly lets him. Weirdly enough, this feels like the most scandalous thing he's done in this building, and yet there's nothing even scandalous about it. He's just changing bottoms. The drama kids surely do costume changes in front of each other all the time. God knows the football players have no shame in it either.

"Think you can manage the rest?" Louis asks once he slides the belt out of each loop, a practiced move on his part.

The only reason this feels so dirty must be because he's got Louis' eyes on him, flitting brazenly between his face and his thighs and his crotch. No reservations, whatsoever.

"If I get caught..." Harry sighs, hastily unbuttoning his trousers and pushing them down his hips. He shimmies them to his knees, sits back on the stage and kicks off his boots, then drags the rest over his boney ankles.

"If I were a terrible person, I'd grab all your clothes and run off right now," Louis muses, twirling Harry's shorts around his index finger, eyeing the generous view.

Harry's face heats up. "You wouldn't."

"Maybe if you were Liam," Louis agrees and throws the shorts back.

Harry catches them easily, slips them over his bare legs, and stands to let Louis ogle him. Louis doesn't say anything for a long moment. He just blinks a few times, lips pressed in a thin, controlled line, and Harry watches with mild curiosity as he visibly swallows, the entire column of his throat moving with it.

"Keep in mind that you've seen me naked about a thousand times before," he softly reminds Louis, enjoying the full effect his bare thighs seems to be having on him. His entire tattoo is on display, as well.

Louis meets his eyes and clears his throat. "This is cheating," he says, voice rough.

Harry beams, dimple etched permanently in his cheek. "It's not my fault Coach McDonald ordered the wrong size," he says, the taste of victory already sweet on his tongue. "Good luck, Lou. You're gonna need it."

\---

It's not even a competition when it comes down to it. Both teams make it to the final, Harry's red team breezing through the first round, Louis' blue team losing one of their three matches but getting through all the same. They meet in the end, the crowd of students and families and all of the other volunteer teachers cheering and whistling from the stands. They meet and it's beautiful watching Louis try to ignore him, try to stop blatantly staring at his thighs, his arse, his arms, tattoos. Honestly, Harry is flattered.

It's Liam who wins it once it's down to the two of them against a very determined Louis. All it takes is Harry lunging for a ball before it rolls over the midway line, back leg extended, shorts riding up, and it's not even on purpose, he doesn't consciously  _plan_  for it to happen, but he grabs the ball, picks his head up, catches Louis' dark gaze fixed on his legs, and  _wham._ Liam's hard lob strikes Louis right in the shoulder.

He's out. They've won.

Harry actually feels sorry for half a wild beat of his heart before he realizes what's happened and gets tacked to the floor by Liam. After that, it all goes a bit loud and crazy, the rest of his team piling on top of them in the middle of the gymnasium.

"Victory!" someone bellows in his ear.

"We did it!" Liam laughs from beneath Harry's arm. "We actually won!"

Harry plants a sloppy kiss on his forehead before he rolls off of him, grinning like a mad man the entire time.

They actually won. He can't believe it. Louis was so sure they were going to lose. Louis, who taunted and teased, who spent all of the previous night chucking throw pillows at him -  _"That's not why they're called_ throw _pillows, Lou!"_  - now has to eat his words and ride home with him on the back of his motorcycle.

Harry picks his head off the ground and searches the bustling gymnasium for his darling boyfriend, finds him half-consoling Niall about ten feet away, half-staring back with the faintest trace of a grin twisting his lips.

Harry blows him a kiss, mouths the word  _sorry,_ even though he's not feeling very sorry at all.

"Put some clothes on, will you?" Louis shouts back, watching Harry scramble to his feet and hurry over to shake his and Niall's hands.

"Sorry you lost," Harry says again.

He claps Niall on the back and Niall raises his eyebrows, his eyes doing this weird jerky motion between him and Louis, his face contorting into a slightly pained expression.

"Is he alright?" Harry asks Louis, ignoring Niall and his un-subtle hints.

"I think he's trying to tell you something, mate," Louis answers anyway. "Probably wants you to say you love me, though I'm not really sure."

Harry glances at Niall again, then back to Louis. "Probably wants me to kiss you."

"Yeah, that too," Louis agrees. "Let's save it for the locker room, shall we?"

"Mmm, good idea." Harry nods and watches Niall's face turn darker and darker, frustration building. Harry can't understand. It's not like he's lying - he's absolutely going to slip Louis the tongue the moment they get out of here. He's always wanted to kiss a pretty boy against a locker room bench, other teachers in the vicinity be damned.

"Listen up, you knobs," Niall cracks, wrenching free of Louis' hand on his shoulder. "When you're both old and wrinkled, sitting in your crusty old cat homes with no one but yourselves for company, don't you  _dare_  come crying to me, whining on about lost love and missed opportunities. It'll be your own bloody faults neither of you ever pulled your heads out of your arses long enough to figure your shit out."

"Fuck, Niall," Louis exhales in a whoosh of air, eyes widening with shock as Harry tries his fucking hardest not to laugh. "I never knew you were so passionate about us. Why didn't you say anything? We could have told you the minute we got together. You'd have known half a year ago."

Slowly, painfully, Niall shuts his eyes and shakes his head.

"I have been rooting for you for the past  _year_ ," he says, voice barely audible above the exiting crowd. Harry had thought there might be a final speech or thank-you from the head teacher, but everything seems to have officially ended. "Do not," Niall continues despite all of this,  _"mock_  me for wishing the best for my two awful, undeserving friends."

"We're not  _that_  awful," Louis argues.

"No, I think we're proper terrible, Lou," Harry points out, because they still haven't told Niall anything and the poor boy looks like he might be ready to have an emotional breakdown over them.

"I'm getting a cupcake," Niall finally says, pushing them out of the way. "Don't follow me."

Harry nearly does, guilt outweighing the joy of winning, making him want to confess all on his own even if he's won the bet and doesn't have to anymore. But Louis grabs the elastic of his waistband and drags him back, snaps it against his bare skin and shakes his head.

"Don't," he advises, pushing the corner of Harry's frown up with his thumb. "We'll tell him after he eats his cupcake. I need you right now. Feel this." He takes Harry's hand and, in the middle of a mass of preoccupied teachers and students alike, flattens it against his chest, presses Harry's palm down over his heart, their fingers overlapping.

His heart is racing.

"That's how terrified I am of getting on your bike tonight," Louis admits, chewing on his bottom lip. "Like, I'll do it. I want to do it. I just don't want to die."

"Baby, you're not going to die," Harry sighs and shuffles closer. "I promise."

"I know." Louis nods. "I know, I'm not stupid. I just - I'm going to need you to distract me for a bit before we go home."

"Distract you?" He's very good at distracting. Anyone who witnessed the last round of dodgeball can attest to that.

"Yes," Louis says. "Distract me. Preferably, in the locker room. With your mouth."

Harry grins, his hand sliding down and off Louis' chest. He can do that.

"I can do that," he agrees, and immediately turns to weave his way through the exiting crowd, Louis hot on his heels, fingertips prodding at his lower back.

"Go, go, go."

"I'm going, I'm going," Harry snorts and shakes his head. Unbelievable.

As soon as the locker room door swings shut behind them, Louis grabs his shoulders and spins him around, hoists himself up, legs wrapping around Harry's hips, ankles hooking behind his back. He just about tilts his head and starts closing his eyes as he leans in to capture his mouth when someone coughs from the other end of the row and nearly causes Harry to drop him on his arse.

"Oi!"

_"Fuck_  me," Harry exhales, ready to piss himself as he clutches Louis for dear life. His heart is pounding. His friends are going to put him in an early grave if they keep sneaking up on him like this.

"Not in front of Niall, I won't," Louis sniggers as he unwinds from around Harry's waist and slinks back to the floor. Harry still doesn't let go. He can't feel his limbs.

"What was  _that?"_  Niall demands, hopping off his bench, newly-purchased cupcake in hand as he paces over to them. "What were you doing?"

Harry instinctively curls closer to Louis, not quite sure why since Niall's got this wide-eyed look of awe and wonder on his face that should be less intimidating and more creepy than anything, but he doesn't want to let go. Niall stops in front of them, his gaze drifting from their faces to their arms around each other, to Harry's hand on Louis' bare hip where his shirt had ridden up on his way to the ground. It's like he's inspecting them. Like they're some science experiment gone incredibly right. Dr. Frankenstein coming face-to-face with his monster.

"This is all a bit weird," Harry mumbles.

"Quiet," Niall silences him. "What were you doing?"

"Well," Louis starts, "when two boys love each other very much-"

"Do you?" Niall interrupts. He won't stop glancing between them like they're his misbehaving children. "Do you love each other?"

"Niall, we've been dating for six months, of course we love each other," Louis says and releases Harry's waist to cup the sides of his heated cheeks.

"Are you lying to me?" Niall threatens.

"Me?" Louis raises an eyebrow.  _"Never."_

Niall turns to Harry instead. "Is he lying to me?" he asks. "Is this real? Because I know I might have been a bit forceful about getting you two together, but I'm not - I never meant to pressure you into anything you didn't want. If you don't actually love each other, you don't have to fake it for me."

"That's awfully egotistical of you, Niall," Harry scoffs as Louis squishes his face. "I'll have you know that absolutely no part of this relationship was conceived with you in mind." He stretches his lips around to kiss Louis' palm, then wriggles out of his grasp.

"I still can't tell if you're lying," Niall says, conflicted. "What was all that about earlier this week? You weren't even talking to each other. You didn't even know how Louis felt about you."

"Well yeah," Harry shrugs. "We've only just recently sorted that bit out. But we're boyfriends now. And we've technically been dating each other for half a year."

"Surprise!" Louis says like they haven't said almost those exact same words an entire week ago. Because they did, right after getting each other off in his bedroom.

For some reason, Niall only chooses to believe them  _now._

"You mean to tell me that you've been telling the truth this  _entire_ time?" he asks, only mildly offended. In all honesty, he's taking this a lot better than Liam had. Instead of looking like he might cry, he looks -  _predictably -_ like he wants to punch them.

"Yeah, so don't say anything about us lying to you," Louis argues haughtily, "because we haven't. You just never believed us."

"Because I've never even seen you kiss!"

"It's called discretion!" Louis exclaims, throwing his hands up at the same time Harry decides he's had enough of this and goes in for the kill.

The kiss is brief, but there's still enough tongue in there to both disgust and appease Niall. Louis smirks into it, Harry can  _feel_  it, even if he looks anything but amused when they pull apart.

"Was that enough for you, or would you like us to keep going?" Louis asks, sounding more put-off than Harry knows he is.

"Let's keep going," Harry suggests and quickly kisses him again, just about hikes Louis' leg up over his thigh when Niall makes a loud gagging noise and starts physically pushing them apart.

"Alright, alright, that's enough. I've seen enough," he insists, stepping between them with a palm on Harry's chest, his elbow on Louis' to keep his cupcake safe. "I believe you. You're in love. You're - Oh. Fucking hell.  _You're in love."_

The realization seems to break him, knocks the rest of his breath from his lungs, sends him falling to the locker room floor in a daze. He sits there with his legs crossed and his cupcake in his lap, like his entire life's been turned upside down.

"We're sorry, Niall," Harry says after a moment, joining him on the floor and leaning against his side. Louis follows a second later, and, together, they sandwich Niall between them, heads falling to his shoulders, arms finding their ways around his middle to pull him into a group cuddle.

It's not the same type of apology he felt he needed to give Liam, but Niall's always enjoyed a hug more than anything.

"I can't believe I was right about everything," Niall mumbles, allowing himself to be swallowed up by their limbs. "I can't believe you hid this from me for so long. Does Liam know?"

"He only found out last week," Louis answers as he reaches for Harry's hand. "And then Harry and I had a bit of a spat-"

"A lovers' quarrel," Harry supplies. He brings Louis' hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles.

"Which delayed us telling you," Louis explains. "But now you know."

"And we promise to name our first dog after you," Harry vows. "Will you forgive us?"

They cradle Niall between them, careful not to squish his cupcake as they wait for him to ease their guilty consciences. It feels good to have everything out in the open for once. It'll feel even better if Niall doesn't hate them for keeping it in for so long.

"I'm just torn," Niall says after a heavy breath, lifting his head from between them. "I'm torn between drowning you two in the nearest river and throwing you a congratulatory party. Like, I'm pretty pissed that you didn't tell me until now. I'm pissed that you made me suffer for  _months_  while you played your shitty games. But I'm also, like, really,  _really_  happy for you. I really love you guys, and I just always want what's best for you."

Harry buries his head further into Niall's shoulder to hide the utterly embarrassing, full-dimpled smile that tries to break out across his face, at the same time Louis laughs and says, "Careful or you'll make Harry cry, mate."

"M'not gonna cry," Harry mumbles, even if he's not entirely sure he believes it. He's just so happy. He feels so loved. For the first time in all his life he feels like he has everything he needs.

"I forgive you," Niall decides, tightening his arms around both of them.

It's a bit of a squeeze, arms and legs and cupcakes and sweaty dodgeball kids all thrown into the mix. Somehow, in the middle of all of it, Louis' fingers find the back of Harry's neck and give his curls a tug, and Harry makes an effort to stretch around Niall's back to meet his lips in a soft kiss. Before Niall can complain about it, Harry ends it and plants a big, wet smooch on the side of his face, Niall shaking him off and pulling a face.

"Get off me," he says, wiping the spit from his cheek. "I don't love you enough to put up with that."

"Oh, pipe down. You've been dreaming of this forever," Louis argues, but he helps them both struggle to their feet all the same.

Harry brushes the dust off his bum and loops his arm through Louis'.

"I take it you're not going out with the rest of us tonight?" Niall asks, eyeing the lack of space between them.

And there's a big part of Harry that wants to say no, a part of him that wants to take Louis onto the back of his bike and drive off into the moonlight for a weekend all on their own. There's a part of him that doesn't want friends, coworkers, everyone they know to make a huge fuss about them showing up together, holding hands, kissing cheeks, flirting. If they go out tonight, people will make it a big deal.  _Niall_  will make it a big deal. Coming out as boyfriends with a brand new depth to their relationship  _is_ a really big deal.

But there's also a part of him, a much less certain part, that wants all of that. It's the part that wants  _everyone_  to know how much he loves Louis, not just Liam and Niall, but the entire world as well. It's the part that wants to be able to kiss him around other teachers, sneak off without worrying they'll get caught. It's the part that wants to arrive together and leave together and have everyone know they're definitely going home together.

That's the part that wants everything with Louis.  _Harry_  wants everything with Louis.

As if he can hear his thoughts, Louis tugs Harry closer to his side and turns to face him. He doesn't even have to say anything. Harry can tell just by the way he's biting his lip, by that small, questioning smile threatening to light up his face, that he feels that part too.

"We can settle the bet some other time, yeah?" Harry says as he tips their heads together.

Louis bumps his nose and nods. "Everyone's going to be so sad... Fit Mr. Styles has a boyfriend." He laces his fingers around the back of Harry's neck and plays with his curls.

Closing his eyes, Harry tilts his head and presses a soft kiss to the corner of Louis' mouth. "They'll have to get over it," he says with a quiet laugh. "Fit Mr. Styles is going to be preoccupied with Fit Mr. Tomlinson for a long time."

Niall lets out a groan beside them and grabs their entwined hands. "Come on," he says as he drags them away from the lockers. "You two owe me some pints."

\---

The April sun has almost set by the time Harry plonks his helmet over his head and zips up his leather jacket.

"We look like Daft Punk," Louis notes, voice muffled from inside his own helmet.

Harry adjusts the straps on his gloves and flips his visor up. "You're ridiculous," he says, but it's fond. Far too fond. "Did you lock the door on the way out?"

"No, my keys are in our room somewhere," Louis says and smushes a hand over Harry's mouth before he can start berating him for losing them  _again_. "Don't give me that look," he sighs as he digs a hand into Harry's front pocket, fishing around for the other set of keys. "I'll find them when we get back. They're probably just in my trousers from last night, under our bed or something."

"Should I start checking your pockets before I undress you?" Harry smirks against Louis' palm. He makes sure to give it a good lick before snatching his keys from Louis' other hand and running back to their door to lock it himself.

He stops and picks a dandelion from the grass on his way back to tuck into Louis' jacket pocket.

"You're such a sap."

"Get on the bike, Lou," Harry laughs. "I've been waiting literal months for this."

Six months, to be exact. It had been a long, cold winter, nights full of hot chocolate and cuddling, holidays shared and split between families hours across England. Harry hadn't wanted to just throw Louis on the back of his motorcycle the first nice day they got. He wanted to wait and make a date out of it, make Louis  _want_  to ride with him, be able to distract him.

Two weeks before their one year anniversary, a month after moving into their new place together, they've finally got their date.

Harry swings a leg over his bike and settles into position, popping up the kickstand and igniting the engine.

"Come on," he says, beckoning Louis towards him. "You'll be fine, Lou. All you have to do is hold on tight and keep your feet off the ground."

"I don't like this," Louis says for the hundredth time as he straddles the seat behind Harry and inches forward. He clunks their helmets together as he settles into place, jostling Harry around until he's pressed firmly against his back with his arms tight around his waist. "Okay," he says, squeezing harder. "Maybe this part isn't so terrible."

"We haven't started moving yet," Harry points out, twisting his head around.

Louis flicks his visor down.

"Do we have to?"

"Yes, come on, kick your feet up." Harry waits until he feels Louis lean into him more, then flips his visor back up so he can actually see once the sun sets. "Don't let go."

"I'm not an idiot, Harold."

"I never said you were," Harry sighs. If it weren't for the sass, this really wouldn't be so terrible having Louis hold onto him like this, secure, trusting, warm. It's actually quite nice. If all goes well, maybe they can do it again some time. Maybe Louis will even let Harry drive him to work like this.

"I love you," he says, because he does, because it always needs to be said and he'll never tire of saying it.

He feels Louis relax against him - if only just a little - and it feels like enough.

"I love you, too," Louis replies.

"Hold on," Harry says again for good measure, giving Louis' thigh a comforting squeeze before shifting into first gear and slowly releasing the clutch.

And then they're off, rolling down the street, wind in their faces, the last rays of sunlight beaming out from the end of the road. It always tastes like freedom when he's on his bike, like the risk he's taking, the open air, the boost of adrenaline to his bloodstream somehow makes him invincible. And he feels invincible. He's felt invincible ever since he fell in love, and this - Louis trusting him with his life, his arms around his waist, body pressed against his back - this makes him feel immortal.

He doesn't go very fast or very far, just up the hill at the edge of town to watch the sun set, as promised. The roads remain fairly empty, the stoplights all green, and by the time the reach the top of the hill, Louis has relaxed his grip so much, he's easy to pry off when Harry cuts the engine and sets the kickstand back down.

"You alright?" he asks softly, removing his helmet and sweeping his hair from his face.

He takes Louis' hand and helps him off the back, catching him when his legs go a bit wobbly and he stumbles forward.

"I'm alive," is the first thing Louis notes. "That's good. Thanks for not killing me, love."

"You're welcome," Harry laughs and gently pulls his helmet off for him. He feels like his heart might burst when he sees the way Louis' looking back. Like Louis' heart might burst, too. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" he asks, smoothing back Louis' fringe.

"You ride like my grandad." Louis smirks and grabs Harry's hand from his face to kiss the inside of his wrist. "I want to go faster on the way home."

"Faster?" Harry repeats, surprised. "What happened to not wanting to die?"

"I trust you," Louis says and pulls him over to the little patch of grass on the side of the road.

Harry drops their helmets then drops to the ground beside him, the two of them sitting side-by-side in their matching leather jackets and matching black skinnies. With the sun just on the horizon, the sky lit-up in pinks and golds and deep purples, it's a beautiful night to spend together, just the two of them at the end of another day.

"Hey," he says, linking their pinkies together where their hands lie flat over the grass.

Louis' eyes fall between them before lifting to his face, everything about him calm and content, quite the contrast to the nerves he was exuding back on the road.

"Hi," he says with a soft smile, eyes crinkling around the corners.

A wave of warmth rolls out of Harry's chest, spreading down to his fingers and toes,  _immortal_ , invincible. There's so much he wants to say, but he never has enough words.

"So, I've been thinking," he tries anyway, bumping Louis' knee with his own. "And I'm probably supposed to save all of this for our one year anniversary or something, but like, I don't know. I don't want to wait two weeks."

"You're not going to propose to me, are you?" Louis asks warily, and Harry catches him rolling his eyes.

"No," he exhales with a quiet laugh, shaking his head at the ground. "No, that's next week after the skydiving."

"Very funny."

"I know. I'm hilarious," Harry agrees. He barely moves when Louis throws a light punch at his shoulder. "Anyway, what I was trying to say," he continues despite Louis scrunching up his face at him like he wants to fight him, "was that you're, like, my favorite person in the world, Lou. Even when you make that terrible face at me. Like, I know I tell you that all the time and I'm such a loser about it-"

_"Such_  a loser," Louis agrees, but he's smiling now, lowering his fists.

"A  _massive_  loser, yeah." Harry nods, his dimple caving into the side of his cheek. "But honestly, there's no one else I'd rather be sitting here on top of the world with than you. And I just wanted to make sure you knew that, that you know how much you mean to me."

He closes the little gap between them and hooks their arms together, plants a kiss on the side of Louis' head and lets him lower it onto his shoulder. He knows he's being rather sentimental, a complete sap as it is, but he needed to say it. He needed to get all of that off his chest, was worried that holding onto it, trying to contain it all might be too much. Love like that has to get out once in a while.

"Thanks for kissing me that time after the Spring Musical," Louis says as the last rays of sunlight stream over the hill.

He leans further into Harry's side and lets Harry rest their heads together, and just sitting there, being with him, existing together in the same space like this makes him wants thank Louis for so many things. For kissing him back that night, for taking him home, for being the person he wakes up to every morning, for indulging his spoon preferences, for the sound of his laugh, for his stupid amounts of love, for the little things. For everything. Louis is his everything. It drives Harry out of his bloody mind how much he feels for him most days.

"Thanks for letting me borrow your scissors," he says eventually because that's where it all started, that first week of school, the first time they spoke.

Louis picks his head up and blinks softly at him, the corner of his mouth quirking into this small smile, like he's not yet sure how to handle all of Harry's sincerity right now.

"Just out of curiosity," he says, eyes lowering to his knees and picking at what might soon become a hole if he's not careful, "what would you say if  _I_  was the one who proposed to  _you_  tonight?"

And the thing is, Harry knows Louis' not serious because he  _knows_  Louis would never pull something like that on him, but the thought does make his heart flutter, make his head whirl a bit out of control.

"Don't propose," he says with an easy laugh as he links their fingers together and starts pulling Louis into his lap. "You know I'd say yes in a heartbeat, but - don't propose."

"Even if I know there's no one else out there for me?" Louis asks, his voice extra syrupy and sweet.

"You can't hijack my date, Louis," Harry insists and leans back on his hands when Louis finally gets up to crawl over to him. "We're here to watch the sun set," Harry says, grabbing Louis' hips as Louis straddles his waist. "You're not allowed to propose tonight."

"Right. I'll need to get a ring first." Louis smirks and lowers himself to sit in the middle of Harry's criss-crossed legs. "Since this is your date, Mr. Styles, what are we going to do once the sun sets?"

He hangs his arms around Harry's neck and just stares at him, blue eyes darkening with the sky.

"I don't know." Harry shrugs. "We can wait for the moon to come up?"

"I don't think it actually works like that," Louis muses, the entire side of his face illuminated in gold. "The moon doesn't just follow the sun. We're not in a cartoon, Harold."

"That's okay," Harry decides, and catches Louis' lips in a quick kiss. They can still wait. It's just the two of them up there, no one to impress but the clear sky above them and the sun burning at the end of its day. They can do whatever they want. They're invincible tonight. "We've got all the time in the world."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [here](http://anylessreal.tumblr.com/) on tumblr :)
> 
> [fic post.](http://anylessreal.tumblr.com/post/145420442225/you-watched-me-sink-bananasandboots-harry)


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